


back road, black road

by eden22



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU from the pilot onwards, Gen, M/M, Monster of the Week, Mystery, Non-Chronological, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 86,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28162239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eden22/pseuds/eden22
Summary: Somewhere between a trailer park in Iowa and a dorm room in Palo Alto, Sam Winchester disappears.Caught between heaven and hell, past and future, demons and angels, two brothers walk the razor’s edge between damnation and salvation. Through what is and what was never meant to be, Sam and Dean struggle to find their way back to each other.Updating once a week.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	1. Palo Alto, California, 2005

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for the whole fic for canon-typical violence and gore. 
> 
> more specific cws will be included in the chapter notes of whichever chapter they occur in.

**Palo Alto, California, 2005**

Dean’s hands anxiously drummed against the steering wheel as he looked up at the building in front of him, the tapping of his palms completely out of sync with the song blasting from the stereo. He hadn’t spent much time on university campuses outside of the occasional hunt, and being there was making him feel weirdly jittery. Maybe it was just the sense of how completely he didn’t belong there, amongst all the kids, barely any younger than him but still so full of potential and hope, kids whose dreams weren’t coated in red, who didn’t sometimes wake up screaming. Or maybe it was knowledge of how much he would stick out as something that didn’t belong the second he stepped out of the car in his worn work boots and faded flannel. If he was being honest with himself though, he knew it was almost definitely the fact that he was about to see Sam for the first time in four years. There was a weird sense of disconnect between the idea of some version of Sam walking across the sidewalk in front of him, maybe studying amongst the students he could see scattered across the lawn, and the Sam that he knew, had known – face still round with the last remaining traces of his baby fat, the defiant yell of _fine, I guess you’ll never see me again then_ that was the last thing Sam had ever said to their dad, the sight of him walking up the steps of the bus, not even glancing back at Dean before he disappeared into the night in a growl of diesel and fading red taillights. Dean had spent the next couple of months waiting for a text, a call, anything, but as the weeks went by he had slowly let go of those expectations. Sam had chosen, he’d tried to tell himself, and he hadn’t chosen Dean. Simple as that. 

Throwing himself into hunting had helped, as had the fact that Dad started giving him more and more hunts for him to do on his own. Not that he didn’t like hunting with his Dad anymore, trusted his Dad any less, but when he looked at him he couldn’t help but hear his voice telling Sam that if he left to never come back, the way that he’d kept his back turned even as Dean ran out the door after Sam. He didn’t blame him, not really, but he couldn’t let go of the ghost of that night either. He wondered sometimes if his Dad felt the same way, if he looked at Dean and felt some sort of echo of the mix of relief and regret that Dean had seen on his face when he’d finally returned to the trailer, alone. It was funny, that Sam would leave and in his absence still manage to take up all of the space between him and his dad, the only thing that had ever managed to wedge between them, the only thing that would ever cause Dean to answer an order with anything other than a sir yes sir. It should have been a relief maybe, but whatever relief it offered was hollow, and far too easily filled up with the pain of missing someone that had always felt as essential to him as a limb. He’d thought about texting, about calling, about being the first to break the silence, but had always resisted. Pride, maybe, or just a stubborn refusal to acknowledge how easy it apparently was for his baby brother, the kid he’d raised, to cut Dean from his life completely. Now though, the defeat of being the first to break the silence just didn’t seem to matter, was so much less important than the fact that Dean needed Sam with a desperation that bordered on illogical, needed his brother by his side before he could find the courage to acknowledge to himself what he in the back of his mind had already accepted was probably waiting at the end of this road. The timestamp on the last text that his Dad had sent him, four months ago, had become more and more heavy the longer went by without a new message, without him answering any of Dean’s increasingly frequent calls. There was only one real answer to the question of why, and Dean just couldn’t – wouldn’t – face that answer alone.

Dean didn’t know if the eyes on him as he crossed the campus were real or imaginary, but he forced himself not to look, just kept his head up and his gaze fixed on his destination, the imposing building rising up in front of him that the Stanford website had informed him was the admissions building. He hadn’t been able to find Sam on any online directory, and the number that he had for him, he’d learned two days ago when he finally gave in and called, was out of service. Which sucked even more, the fact that Sam not only had spent four years choosing not to contact Dean, he’d also at some point removed the only channel through which Dean could get in touch with him. It also meant that he didn’t have any other choice but to hit up the bureaucracy of the institution, and hope that he could sweet talk someone into giving up Sam’s phone number, or even better, his address. 

It took three people and almost an hour of wandering the halls of the building before he ended up tapping on the open door of a small office shoved in a corner at the end of a quiet hallway. The woman behind the desk looked up at him, short blonde hair and round glasses with a thin silver frame, her skin dark and smooth. She ran her eyes up and down him, and he had a second of feeling self-conscious before he realized that the look was appreciative rather than judgemental, and relaxed into a familiar slouch, a flirtatious smile already tugging on the corner of his mouth by the time her gaze returned to his face. 

“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?” Dean nodded, stepping further into the room. 

“I hope so,” he said. “I’m trying to get ahold of my brother – he left his phone in my car and I don’t know his current address.” He shrugged, trying to project an air of embarrassed sheepishness. The woman smiled up at him, so it must have been working. 

“Of course,” she said, “I’m happy to help.” She gestured towards the chairs in front of her desk and Dean sat, allowing himself to relax into a familiar lazy sprawl. The woman – Vicky, according to the small name tag pinned to her shirt – gave him another quick once-over before she turned back to her computer. “So, what happened?” she asked as she clicked around. Dean plasted a wry smile on his mouth. 

“I picked him up for lunch between his classes yesterday,” he said, the lie rolling off his tongue easy as anything. “I dropped him off back at the campus and only realized he’d left his phone in my car after. He moved recently, and I can’t remember what he said his new address was, or I’d just go over to his place to give it back to him.” She nodded, face sympathetic as she clicked around. 

“Ok well, let’s see what I can find here. What’s your brother’s name?”

“Samuel Winchester,” Dean said. Vicky looked back at him. 

“Do you have some ID?” she asked, voice apologetic. “Anything to prove your relation? Sorry, it’s just–”

“No yeah,” Dean interrupted, already reaching for his wallet. “I totally get it,” he said, flashing her a grin as he double checked that the ID that he was pulling out had his actual name on it. “Don’t want to be giving out people’s information to total randoms.” Vicky nodded as she accepted his license, scanning it quickly before handing it back to him. 

“Thanks,” she said, turning back to the screen and clicking around a bit more. She typed something into the computer, then frowned, clicking a couple more times. Her frown was deepening, and a familiar warning began to sound at the back of Dean’s head. _Wrong_ , it said. _Something’s wrong_. “You said Samuel Winchester, right?” she said. 

“Yeah,” Dean said, muscles tensing as he unconsciously straightened from his casual slouch. “He usually goes by Sam though, so it might be under that? He started in 2001.”

“Okay, 2001, 2001,” Vicky muttered to herself, clicking around until finally her eyes widened in surprise, and she glanced over at Dean before quickly looking back at her computer screen. She shifted, visibly nervous. When she didn’t say anything right away, Dean was only able to resist for a couple of seconds before he couldn’t help but ask:

“Is something wrong?” he said, fingers flexing against the rough denim of his jeans. Vicky looked between him and the computer screen, clearly hesitant to give him whatever information she’d found. Dean’s mind began to flick through all the possibilities, most of them things that he didn’t want to even consider, things that couldn’t possibly be true because surely he would have known, would have sensed if if something had happened– 

“Um…” she said, trailing off before visibly preparing herself to continue. “Your brother was offered a fully funded scholarship in 2001, had accepted the offer and was all set to start in September of that year.” The word _was_ echoed around Dean’s head, just barely audible above the suddenly too loud sound of blood rushing through his ears. 

“But?” he asked, needing her to say it, say what he was already all but certain was coming next.

“He never showed up,” she said, voice apologetic. “Didn’t check in to his dorms, didn’t register for classes, nothing. His student account was closed when we couldn’t get ahold of him by December–” Dean stopped paying attention to what she was saying after that, head spinning as his heart pounded, jackrabbit fast, fear and confusion swirling through him. 

If Sam wasn’t at Stanford, then where the hell was he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to eliza for being incredibly lovely and beta'ing this despite having only watched one (1) episode of supernatural ever.
> 
> i'm on twitter talking mostly hockey but also desperate for supernatural friends now that my interest in this show has decided to resurrect itself, [@thotlander](https://twitter.com/thotlander).
> 
> thanks for reading!


	2. Unknown, 2007

**Unknown, 2007**

Sam woke up next to a corpse.

He lay where he was for a long moment, staring into her sightless eyes, the white film of death obscuring whatever colour they had been in life. She had been dead long enough for rigour mortis to set in, her body unmoving even when he shifted on the mattress, rolling onto his side to get a better look at her, but not long enough for her to begin to rot, the stale smell of death thankfully not yet tinged with the scent of purifying organs beginning their slow journey towards becoming nothing more than a slurry of meat and liquid. Her dark hair was sprayed out over the pillow, the chaotic tumble of curls strangely reminiscent of a spreading pool of blood and viscera, and he spent a long minute staring at it until he was certain that it was nothing more than hair. When he glanced down he saw that she was clothed, though the thin peach coloured bra and panty set did little to grant her any modesty in death. It made it sadder somehow, than if she had been naked, the small amount of fabric affording no real protection, revealing the vulnerability of having a body, that nothing you put on yourself can save you from the inevitability of something crawling inside you and tearing your insides bloody. Sam looked at her for another breath, two, three, then reached out and gently shut the lids of her eyes. It didn’t make it better, but it didn’t make it worse either, and with a sigh he pushed himself up, getting out the other side of the bed. 

He didn’t look back at the body as he crossed the room to where his backpack was shoved in the corner, got dressed in what little light was leaking in around the curtains pulled over the room’s sole window. This far away from the body, the scent of death was replaced with other, only slightly less unpleasant smells: rotting garbage, piss, the rank stench of unwashed humans. Sam grimaced as he tugged on one of his few remaining clean shirts, sniffing to make sure that the smell hadn’t permeated it’s threads at least. Despite the fact that it was shoved in the same bag as his dirty clothes however, it luckily smelt of nothing more than dry canvas and the faintest whisper of laundry detergent. He’d have to do laundry soon though, which meant he was either going to have to come up with some money, or break into a house. Neither option was ideal, both presenting their own special opportunities for disaster. He couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself, not right now. He glanced back towards the body as he tucked his shirt into his jeans, then bent and shoved everything that had scattered out onto the floor back into his backpack: some dirty shirts, a sheath bereft of it’s knife, and an unlabelled bottle of pills that he stopped to frown at, shaking them and watching the small unmarked white ovals rattle around, a few larger green and yellow ones disrupting the hegemony of the bottle. He opened the lid, tipping two of the white ones out and staring at them for a long moment before finally mentally shrugging and swallowing them both dry. Throwing the bottle in the backpack, he zipped it shut before picking up his worn brown canvas jacket, standing and pulling it on as he walked back to the bed. He kept his eyes on the woman as he reached under his pillow and pulled out his gun, tucking it into the back of his jeans in a movement that was more muscle memory than anything. There were no marks on her body, nothing to indicate how she died. Not even any bruising. His eyes flicked around the room as he walked around the bed to get closer to her, but there was nothing there that hadn’t been there when he’d arrived the previous night, just the detritus of whoever had been squatting there before him, empty bottles and fast food wrappers. Next to the other graffiti that covered the walls, the red spray paint of his warding hardly even managed to change the place. Crouching, he ran his eyes over her from the other side, but there was nothing more to see than what he’d already observed. He reached out, ran a finger down the same path his eyes had just travelled, from the high peak of her cheekbone, down her neck, her chest, her stomach, stopping just below her hip. He tapped the skin there once, twice. It was still so soft, smooth, perfect. _Vulnerable_ , he thought again. _Useless_. He curled his hand around her hip, raising his other to her shoulder and rolling her stiff body until her back was exposed. The sheet stuck to her skin, peeling off reluctantly as he held her up, a slow tug of stained fabric inching away from icy skin. She must have already been dead when she’d been cut into, he thought, looking at the marks on her skin, or he’d have woken up in a pool of her blood, would have been able to see it seeping out from beneath her body. As it was, the blood had hardly even penetrated the sheets beneath her, had just barely stained the top elastic of her panties, a red bloom turned brown and dull against the light fabric. 

_Hi Sam_ the message read, the cut of the words messy and jagged in a way that made Sam curl his lip. Sloppy, but at least he was now certain he hadn’t been the one to kill her. He sighed, let her fall back onto the bed with a heavy sound. He rose, looked down at her for a long minute before turning and heading back to his backpack. There was no point doing anything about the body – someone else would find it eventually, and he had no desire to deal with the police today. He had other things to do, other places to be. After all, that message had been clear as anything. 

_He was running out of time._

The sunlight outside made his vision waver, or maybe it was the pills, but either way he had to catch himself against the outside of the house, stumbling down the few concrete steps to lean against the worn wooden boards, peeling paint crackling beneath the hard press of his body. There were people out here, walking back and forth on the sidewalk, going about their ordinary lives. No one even glanced at him though, and he tilted his head back to grin up at the sky, the sun warm against his face as he let his eyes drift shrut. Dizziness rolled through him in waves, and he let himself slide down the side of the wall to sit. The sounds of traffic, of people walking past on the sidewalk were distant, secondary to the sound of the wind as it passed over his skin, the rustle of the dry and brittle grass beneath and around him. A spasm rippling through his stomach reminded him of another possible cause of the dizziness, and he tried to remember the last time he ate. Another argument for taking the time to get ahold of some more money, he supposed, though he could probably go at least another day or two before it became a real issue. Not that he had a day or two, if the body beginning to rot in the house behind him was any indication. If Merihem thought he needed to be told to move faster, it was probably already too late. He briefly toyed with the idea of drawing it out even more, weighing the punishment it’d incur against the few extra days of temporary freedom. His back still ached when it rained with the reminder of the last time he’d lingered unnecessarily though, and that thought is enough to make him sigh and push himself back to his feet, only staggering slightly as he rose. He threw his backpack over his shoulders and made his way down the cracked sidewalk and through the rusty front gate, its hinges squealing loud enough to finally draw a couple of curious eyes. He ignored them though, and started walking. 

The change he had on him just managed to cover the bus fare to get him to the train, and he wasn’t surprised when the man he sat down next to subtly shuffled away from him. He knew what he looked like, what he smelled like, just as well as he knew that people would be far more likely to ignore him, to avert their eyes and forget his face if they thought he was homeless. He smiled at the floor of the bus, a far more bitter and empty expression than the one that had stolen over him back at the house. It was one that sat far more comfortably on his face though, felt more natural, more right. Sam took a deep breath, swallowing before he let his eyes drift out of focus as he began chanting under his breath, the Hatamtite rolling off his tongue just as easily as English. The man sitting next to him got up and moved away, and Sam smiled again without pausing in his recitation. The vision, when it rose before him, was choked in black smoke, dense and unyielding, and he put more force behind his words, still speaking whisper quiet but with as much of a push as he could manage, pain spiking through his head despite the pills he’d taken earlier, the sharp ache cutting through the fog of medication. It managed to tear a jagged rip through the roiling blackness though, revealing a flash of a street name, a picture-perfect suburban house, a head of dark brown hair shot through with grey and a flash of blue eyes, crows feet wrinkling the edges in a smile. When he released it, he wasn’t surprising to find himself panting, shaking with exertion. The sense of eyes watching him was stronger than before, but when he glanced up all he was greeted with was a series of heads quickly turning away from him, going back to determinedly pretending he wasn’t there now that they knew he wasn’t about to die or something. The vision had confirmed that he was on the right path, offered him the reassurance he needed to lean back in his seat, breathing deeply and letting the pain wash over him. He briefly debated pulling out the pill bottle again, but he didn’t want to risk getting kicked off the bus and having to walk the rest of the way. The steady pulse of time slipping away from him was now a constant sensation, a reminder of how near he was to his goal, how he was probably already out of time. The pain that always accompanied his visions was one of the milder ones he regularly experienced anyways. He glanced up at the map above him as the robotic voice announced their next stop over the speaker, tracked the thin blue line that marked their current route almost all the way to the end before he finally spotted his destination. It would be at least an hour, maybe two. 

Picking the pockets of a couple of the people rushing to and from the train station was easy enough, Sam making sure to target the men wearing expensive suits and briefcases, yelling into their phones and pushing through crowds with the easy entitlement that spoke to a lifetime of privilege and power. If he had to grab more wallets to get all the cash he needed than he would have if he picket targets less reliant on credit cards well, that was just how it went sometimes. He debated keeping one of the cards, using it to buy a meal for himself inside the station before he got on the train, but ultimately decided against it. He would probably still have enough for a granola bar of something from a vending machine after he got his ticket, and he was so close now. It would be an unnecessary danger, to risk being caught on camera, to have the police called on him. If it was earlier, if he had more _time_... but the body he’d left to decompose in that house was still sharp in his memories, a warning written and paid for in blood. Instead, he dumped all of the wallets in a trash can outside of the station, before heading in to purchase his ticket. At least he’d be able to sleep more on the train, his limbs heavy with hunger and exhaustion, weeks on the road without slowing down, without stopping for longer than it took to take care of only the basic necessities: water, sometimes food, even less often shelter. He was so close now though, almost done. The train ride would give him time to rest, to centre himself and prepare for what was ahead. 

The sun was low in the sky by the time Sam found himself standing outside of the house he’d seen in his vision the day before, the air cooling around him. He had no real sense for what time it was, but he figured it was probably sometime after five. He’d had to walk for almost four hours after leaving the train station behind him, and he was glad that he wouldn’t have to retrace his steps afterwards, the maze of look-alike suburban houses difficult enough to navigate once. He had a second of doubting if this was even the right house, but when he poked at the memory of the vision in his mind, the ghost of it floating in front of his eyes was a perfect match, from the small toy truck abandoned by the front sidewalk to the slightly crookedly hung house number. He briefly just considered walking up to the front door and trying to talk his way inside, but quickly dismissed the option. If he’d gotten here sooner, or if he’d stopped to do laundry, to shower and shave, he probably could have managed it. On his good days he could still summon the aw-shucks boy-next-door persona, the one that led strangers to trust him despite his height, despite the scars. This wasn’t a good day though, and so Sam headed towards the back gate. He glanced around, making sure there were no eyes on him before he quickly scaled the fence, landing easily on the other side. He headed around towards the back of the house, making sure to duck beneath the view of the windows as he went. There weren’t any lights on in any of the ones he passed on his way towards the backyard, but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks, not when he was so close, not when it’d be done so soon. There was a light on at the back though, and Sam pushed his body flush with the wall, edging closer and closer until he was able to peer in. He found himself looking into a brightly lit kitchen, the dining room visible just beyond. There was a woman there, blonde and petite, putting plates down on the table as a small child did his best to tangle himself in her legs and– there. Brown hair, blue eyes, saying something to the woman to make her laugh as he takes his seat. 

_Steve._

Sam watches just long enough to see the woman get the boy into his seat, taking her own place, before he makes his way silently to the back door. He tries the handle, rolls his eyes when he finds it unlocked. They clearly thought they were safe, didn’t worry about what might come creeping in their house from the darkness, didn’t know enough to scent the air when evil was near. Sam moves inside in near perfect silence, the sound of the door clicking shut behind him audible only to him. He turns the deadbolt behind him – just because they’re stupid doesn’t mean he has to be – and keeps a cautious eye on the open entryway to the dining room as he heads down the hallway that runs parallel to the kitchen and dining room. The woman is the only one whose eyesight he’s in though, and she doesn’t turn, and soon enough he’s safely out of sight. His guess about the house’s layout is quickly proven correct, an arch of light spilling out into the otherwise dark and still hallway from the other entryway into the dining room. Maybe there was _one_ upside to the dull predictability of suburban homes he thought to himself as he slowly walked down the hallway, making sure to keep close to the wall, where the floor was far less likely to make any noises that would give him away. The sound of cutlery clinking, of the child’s babble, the man’s laugh, was muffled through the wall, and made something strange and forgotten spike through Sam’s stomach. Memory, maybe, though this was a life he’d never had, even before. Guilt, even less likely, a weakness he’d done so much to eradicate. 

He reaches into the inside of his jacket, takes ahold of the handle of his favourite knife, safely stowed in the sheith he’d sewed into the jacket lining, drawing it slowly. He could always use his gun instead, loaded and ready against his back, but there was something about using his knife in this moment that held far greater appeal. Some petty, jealous urge to cause as much damage to this picture perfect home, this family that everything that Sam had never been allowed. Not that they would have it anymore, after tonight, Sam the spark that would ignite their world and burn it to ash around their screaming faces. He smiled, a jerky, unnatural expression as he paused just outside of the dining room, adjusting his grip on the knife. He could see a reflection of the room in the glass of a picture hung on the wall he could see in his shallow field of vision, the small family still arranged the same way as they had been earlier, the father’s back to Sam. Perfect. Sam took a deep breath and stepped around the corner, the boy not even noticing him, the woman barely having time to do anything more than widen her eyes in sudden fear before he was taking two quick steps across the room, grabbing the man by his hair and dragging his blade across his throat, arterial blood splattering across his wife and child as he died with nothing more than a strangled gurgle. Sam let go of his hair and the man slumped forward. He ignored him, absently wiping his knife off on the back of his shirt as shock finally gave way to understanding, and to terror. 

The woman’s screams were shrill enough to be annoying, but not bad enough for Sam to want to do anything about it. It might attract the neighbor’s attention, and at some point Sam was sure that someone would call the police, but that didn’t matter anymore. The little boy sobbing was another story, the noise grating, rubbing against some raw and tender thing buried deep in Sam’s chest that had once cared about that sort of thing. He knew from experience that taking the time to stop it wouldn’t make it feel any better though, so he tried his best to ignore it, walking over to where the woman’s chair had been before she’d kicked it over as she scrabbled away from him. The plate of macaroni and cheese was still hot to the touch as he picked it up, and he flicked the couple of noodles that had gotten droplets of blood on them off onto the table before he picked up the fork and began to shovel it into his mouth, barely chewing as he went. He only managed a couple of bites before his stomach revolted at the sudden influx of heavy, rich food after such a long time spent empty, but he determinately swallowed down the rising tide of bile and acid and kept eating. It was so fucking good, spicy and thick with cheese and he focused on it, continuing to ignore the woman who had now edged around the table to grab her son, pulling him into her arms and finally running from the room. It wasn’t important, and he wouldn’t be there long enough for there to be any consequences for letting her live. Sure enough, he was just finishing off the plate when a woman’s voice suddenly came from behind him. 

“You shouldn’t have let her go,” the woman said, and Sam turned to see Merihem standing behind him, arms crossed as she stared after the other woman. “She’s already at the neighbors. The police will be here soon.” Sam shrugged. 

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” he asked, licking the fork, and Merihem turned her gaze to him. 

“No,” she admitted, keeping her arms crossed as she looked at him. Sam set down the plate, regarding her in turn. 

“So?” he asked. Merihem shrugged.

“It was okay,” she said. 

“Okay?” Sam repeated, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He expected that reaction from her father, or maybe just dreaded it, but Merihem usually had far more reasonable expectations of him. He gestured towards the body of the man, his blood still slowly spreading across the table, glistening under the lights of the dining room. Looking over at him, Sam found himself briefly mourning the perfect plate of pasta that his head was lying in, before the basket of bread from the middle of the table caught his attention. Flipping off the napkin, he let out a pleased noise when he saw that the fabric had spared the bread any bloody contamination, and shoved a whole slice in his mouth. When he looked back at Merihem she was still looking at him, a faint expression of disgust on her face, though whether that was because of how Sam was eating or the critique of his performance he couldn’t tell. 

“It took you almost three weeks,” she said. 

“Yeah,” Sam said around the half-chewed bread still in his mouth, before he swallowed, still annoyed. “And I crossed half the country, on nothing more than a first name, and made the kill.” Merihem rolled her eyes. 

“A child could do the same,” she said. “And you, Samael, are not a child.” He scowled at the name but didn't say anything. Merihem smiled brightly at him, as if she could hear what he was thinking, even though he knew perfectly well that that was a skill she didn’t possess. He shot her an irritated look instead, fought back the childish urge to stick his tongue out at her. .

“Whatever,” he said as the first faint sounds of sirens began to reach the edges of his hearing. “Can we go now?” Merihem nodded, stepping closer. 

“You could have just left a note you know,” he said as she drew near. She grinned in response, sudden amusement sparking across her face.

“Yeah,” she said, “I could have.” Sam rolled his eyes, but had to fight the urge to smile back at her. The thought of why she would have felt the need to warn him quickly cut through the amusement, though, and he carefully met her eyes when he spoke next. 

“Thanks for the warning,” he said, voice quiet. Merihem nodded, the smile sliding off her face as quickly as it had appeared. 

“Father will want to see you,” she said as she closed the remaining distance between them, and Sam found himself again forcing the food he’d eaten to stay down. Merihem’s expression softened as she lay her hand on his arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll think you did well.” 

It was a lie, and they both knew it, but Sam allowed her the small kindness of it as the room disappeared into inky blackness and the snap of fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to really emphasize at this point that this is NOT a serial killer AU.
> 
> thank you again to eliza for the beta!! 
> 
> hmu on twitter [@thotlander](https://twitter.com/thotlander).
> 
> thanks for reading!


	3. Blue Earth, Minnesota, 2005

**Blue Earth, Minnesota, 2005**

The car door had barely shut behind him before Pastor Jim was walking down the rectory steps, his familiar face making something inside Dean relax despite himself. He wasn’t a child, was years removed from the boy who had run around the rectory, the church beside it, chasing after his little brother, but in that moment he’d never felt so much like one, filled with the sudden desperate need for someone else to step in and take this burden away from him. For someone, anyone, to tell him everything was going to be okay. It would be a lie of course, but just for once he craved that same false comfort he so often offered to civilians: hollow words promising that they were safe, their family was safe, the monster was gone and there was nothing else that could hurt them still waiting out in the darkness. He pushed the thought from his head, straightening his back as he headed across the gravel, breath puffing in the air in front of him. 

“Dean,” Jim said, voice warm, and he tugged Dean into a hug as soon as he was close enough to do so. Dean smiled at the familiar gesture, so alien to so many of the other people in his life, and returned the gesture easily. 

“Jim,” he said in return. “How are you?” 

Jim pulled back, shrugged. 

“Same as always I suppose,” he said. Dean nodded, and Jim tilted his head backwards towards his home. “Come inside?” he asked, and Dean nodded, ignoring the fact that Jim hadn’t asked how he was in return. They both already knew the answer anyways. 

The kitchen was exactly how Dean remembered it, the scent of fresh herbs a constant clinging scent, the ancient silver kettle that Jim filled with water from the tap the same one he’d been using Dean’s entire life. Dean took what had become, over the years, his seat at the table without even thinking about it, though something in him clenched as he looked over at the two empty chairs next to him, the ghosts of the men that should be in them an almost physical presence in the room. Jim turned back from turning the stove on, catching where Dean was looking before Dean could look away. Dean grimaced, but Jim didn’t say anything, just grabbed a pair of mugs and the box of tea from the cupboard. It wasn’t until there was a mug steaming in front of him, Jim sitting across from him, that Jim broke the silence. 

“You didn’t say much on the phone,” he started, voice hesitant. Dean stared down at the mug in front of him, his distorted reflection rippling atop the dark liquid. It smelled like mint and honey, calming despite everything, or maybe it was just the fact that this was the first time in days that he’d been able to even partially let go of the ball of panic and fear that had been sitting in his chest ever since his visit to the Stanford admissions office. 

“I haven’t been able to get a hold of Dad in months,” he said, voice flat, and Jim nodded. That had been as much as Dean had been able to get out on the phone, but it hadn’t even been new information, Dean having called him months ago asking him to let Dean know if he heard from John at all. Dean shook his head. “He just disappeared, didn’t even tell me where he was going to be. He could have been hunting anything, could be anywhere.” When Dean glanced up, Jim’s expression was so carefully sympathetic that it made his chest hurt, made his eyes skip away to stare at the rows of drying herbs hanging in the window. “I went to get Sam,” he said, keeping his eyes on the plants even as he saw Jim shift in surprise out of the corner of his eye. “It’s dumb but I thought… I don’t know, I thought he might be able to help? He’s– he was always smarter than me.” 

“Dean…” Jim started, but didn’t finish. It didn’t really matter. Dean could guess how that sentence was going to end either way. _You’re plenty smart_ maybe, or _it’s ok that you wanted your brother to be with you when you went to try and find your father’s body_. Dean shook his head, trying to disperse the echoes of words that would never be spoken aloud. Jim didn’t know yet anyways, didn’t yet realize the full scope of how badly Dean had fucked up, how badly he’d failed his whole family. 

“He wasn’t there,” Dean said, and finally looked back at Jim just in time to watch as the pastor’s brow furrowed in confusion. 

“John?” he asked, and Dean shook his head again. 

“Sam. He wasn’t at Stanford.” Jim’s frown deepened. 

“What?” he said. “Then where–”

“He never was,” Dean interrupted. Jim looked at him blankly, and Dean tried to choke down his own fear and guilt as he continued. “Sam never got to Palo Alto, never registered for school. He just… he’s gone, been gone for four fucking years and _I didn’t know_.” Jim’s eyes were wide with understanding and shock, and Dean felt viciously glad for it. Someone else besides him should bear the weight of this, even if the blame lay only with him.

“I–,” Jim started, but then stopped, clearly at a loss for words. Dean didn’t blame him, just looked down at the mug still held loosely in his grip, raising it to take a long drink. It burned his throat, and it felt like a penance deserved two times over. _One for the father, one for the son._ He could spend the rest of his life on his knees, Latin heavy on his tongue, and it would never be enough to absolve him of the sins weighing down his limbs, making his thoughts sluggish and useless. 

“I don’t even know where to start,” Dean said, voice breaking as he finally acknowledged aloud the helplessness that had driven him to make the almost two thousand mile drive to Blue Earth in two days. “Jim, I don’t… it’s been four _years_.” Jim shook his head, clearly at just as much of a loss as Dean was. “There’s no… there’s no trail, I don’t even know what bus route he took, or was going to take. I bought his first ticket for him in cash, I don’t know what credit cards he had on him when he left, what names they had on them. His phone’s out of service, and there’s just… there’s _nothing_.” Dean’s voice broke off into heavy breaths as he lowered his head into his hands, fingers running into his hair and gripping tight, tugging, the sharp pain of the wrenching motion the least he deserved. 

_I lost him, I lost Sammy._

“Dean,” Jim said, his hands gentle on Dean’s own, coaxing, slowly pulling them away from his head. He reluctantly raised his eyes to meet Jim’s, hating the way the grief and sympathy in them made tears sting at the back of his throat. “Do you think…” he started, then paused, clearly hesitant, maybe worried about how Dean might react to whatever he said next. “Do you think Sam might have lied?” Dean blinked at him.

“Lied about what?” he asked. Sam had lied about a lot of things, back then. It had maybe been the worst part of that night, the fight with their dad: the realization that Sam had hidden this from him, hidden the fact that he was planning on leaving Dean, for good this time. 

“About going to university,” Jim said, and Dean started shaking his head before he had the chance to finish talking. 

“No,” he said.

“Dean,” Jim said, voice gentle in a way that made anger spike in Dean’s chest, sudden and hot.

“No,” he repeated, even more forcefully. “He accepted the scholarship, he’d gotten everything sorted out with the dorms, had a roommate assigned to him and everything. He just… never showed up.” Dean watched as Jim sighed, running a hand down his face and staring into the space just over Dean’s shoulder. When he looked back at Dean, his eyes were blank, and Dean knew then that there would be no hollow comfort to be found within these familiar walls. 

He still stayed the night, more because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to drive anywhere without getting at least a couple of hours of sleep. He didn’t want to risk accidentally running his baby off the road. _Yet,_ some darkly fatalistic part of his mind commented, and he pushed the thought away. He wasn’t there, couldn’t think like that. Not when Sam was out there somewhere (please god be out there somewhere), not when there was still a chance that he could find his brother (please god please god I’ll give you anything). He’d climbed the stairs to the second floor of the rectory with feet that felt like lead, Jim lingering in the kitchen with his books and a half-heard explanation of trying to look up scrying spells. He didn’t think, just turned and walked down to the room at the end of the hallway, and it wasn’t until he was standing in the doorway that he stumbled to a halt, a wave of nausea rolling through him as he stared at the two twin beds pushed to either side of the small room. He could almost see the faded outline of Sam at 5, 13, 17, sitting on the edge of the furthest bed, laughing at Dean’s joke, complaining about the way he spread his stuff out over everything, ignoring him in favour of reading something impossibly dense and boring. For half a second Dean was sure he was about to hear his brother’s voice, that Sam would come up from behind him, shove him into the doorway and tell him to get the fuck out of his way. There’s nothing there though, nothing but silence and dust and cold, empty sheets. Jim didn’t say a thing when he came stumbling back down the stairs, carefully avoiding meeting Dean’s eyes as he headed over to the couch instead, collapsing in an exhausted sprawl. His throat was thick with guilt and he felt like he could barely breathe for it, much less fall asleep, but somehow, impossibly, between one breath and the next, he did. 

Jim didn’t seem surprised to find Dean in the church early the next morning, bent in half in the pew at the front of the church. Dean hadn’t bothered to look up when he’d heard the door open, or as the steady sound of footsteps against tile drew nearer and nearer. He could see the black tips of Jim’s sneakers out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored them, just kept repeating the same words under his breath, over and over again. He was speaking so quietly he could barely hear himself, but he still wasn’t surprised when Jim interrupted him.

“This is an Anglican church you know,” he said, voice mild. Dean finally straightened up, raising his head to meet Jim’s eyes. 

“And I’m not Catholic,” he said, “and God isn’t real.” Jim didn’t react to the words, though Dean supposed that John had said the same, had said worse, to Jim enough times that the denial barely even registered when coming from a Winchester. 

“And yet you’re saying the Ave Maria.” Dean raised an eyebrow at Jim, who rolled his eyes at him before settling into the pew next to him. They sat in silence for a long moment, the words that he’d been in the middle of receding sitting heavy on Dean’s tongue. _Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum._

“It was Sam’s favourite,” Dean finally said. “I don’t know if it was because of mom, or something else, but…” he trailed off, shrugged, feeling weirdly embarrassed and exposed. Jim just nodded though, didn’t comment any further on why Dean was praying to a god he didn’t believe in with a prayer that wasn’t his own. 

“I think you should go to Sioux Falls,” Jim said instead, and Dean looked at him in surprise. 

“To Bobby’s?” he asked. “Why?”

“I stayed up trying to find a scrying spell or locating spell last night,” Jim said, “I couldn’t find anything, but Bobby has the largest collection of occult books of any hunter I know.” Dean bit his lip, thinking. Jim wasn’t wrong, but–

“The last time I saw Bobby he was running us off his property with a shotgun,” he admitted, raised an eyebrow when Jim waved the words away like they were nothing. 

“That was about John and not you,” he said. “You know Bobby’s never had anything but love for you boys.” Dean shrugged, uncomfortable, and watched as Jim shot him an exasperated look. 

“I can call him and let him know you’re coming,” he said. “But I know he’ll be glad to see you. And I think he’s your best bet, for figuring out how to begin to find your brother. And your dad,” he added as an afterthought, and Dean fought not to bristle at the slip. Jim wasn’t wrong. His father had been– _was_ , a difficult man to stay friends with. Even among the hunters who were still willing to take his calls, few of them had much love to spare for John Winchester. Dean sat with the offer for a long minute, thinking over his options. Jim was right though – Bobby’s library was legendary amongst the hunting community, and Dean had run into more hunters that knew Bobby, had swung by Singer Salvage for one reason or another over the years, than didn’t. If Bobby didn’t have anything for him, he might at least know where Dean could look next. 

“Yeah,” he finally said. “That’d be good, thanks Jim.” Jim nodded, standing. When Dean didn’t do the same, he hesitated, looking down at him. 

“I’ll be in the rectory when you’re done,” he finally said, and Dean nodded, grateful for the space. He still felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he hadn’t taken a full breath since the woman had told him his brother was missing, but there was something about sitting in the church that was calming, even if there was nothing there that he’d ever believed in. He looked up at the crucifix that dominated the front of the large room, the peaceful expression on the man’s face utterly at odds with the violence done to his body. 

“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae,” Dean said, keeping his eyes fixed on the face of the sacrificial son. _Please_ , he thought, _please_. 

Despite Jim’s reassurances, Dean still half expected to be greeted by a gun when he pulled into the yard of Singer Salvage that afternoon. There was no gun though, no sign of Bobby at all as the Impala came to a slow, rolling stop, the sound of gravel pinging off the undercarriage the only sound other than the low growl of the engine. It was strange, Dean thought as he looked around the junkyard. It had been almost a decade, and there was no way that the vehicles that surrounded him were the same ones that had been there the last time he was at this place, when he was still a teenager, but it somehow managed to still look exactly the same as it had back then. Though maybe the particulars of the vehicles were less important to the sense of familiarity than the worn facade of the house stuck in the middle of all of the rusting metal carasses, the smell of rust and dust that washed over Dean as he shut off the car and climbed out. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he looked around him, wondering where Bobby was. Jim had said that he’d sounded as pleased as Bobby ever did over the phone, when Jim had told him that Dean would be headed his way. That he hadn’t come out at the sound of a car in the yard was unusual, though Dean supposed he might be down in the basement, or further back on the property. Dean made one last slow scan of the yard before checking his gun and heading towards the house, keeping an eye out on his surroundings as he went. He managed to get a couple of meters away from the dilapidated porch before he abruptly became aware that there was someone sitting on one of the chairs. There was a brief second where he went for his gun, before his eyes adjusted to the shadows cast by the overhang and a familiar face finally materialized from the darkness. Dean relaxed his arm, taking in the old, worn cap that he’d swear had been the same one Bobby had been wearing his whole life, the hunter’s uniform of plaid and denim, a bottle of beer held in one scarred hand. 

“Hey Bobby,” he said as he finally reached the bottom of the steps. Bobby’s gaze on him was bright, sharp, even as he raised the beer to his mouth and took a long pull. He nodded towards the cooler sitting on the porch between them, and Dean stooped to grab a bottle of his own, opening it with his ring and taking a long drink. Bobby’s eyes stayed locked on him until he swallowed, at which point he finally smiled, gruff and warm in that way that only he ever managed. 

“It’s good to see you, boy,” he said, and Dean smiled back at him, leaning up against the porch railing. 

“Holy water?” he asked, raising the bottle in his hand. Bobby’s smile widened, and Dean looked at the bottle. “How’d you reseal it?” he asked.

“Now, an old man’s gotta have some secrets,” Bobby said. “It’s the only thing that keeps us from total irrelevancy.” 

“Aw Bobby, you could never be irrelevant,” Dean said with a grin. Bobby rolled his eyes and it was like no time had passed since the last time he was here, Dean stealing beer instead of being given it, nineteen and sure that he had the entire world figured out. He had never found out what Bobby and his Dad had even fought about, when Bobby kicked him, and Sam and Dean by proxy, off of his property that August, had never asked. He did remember that he and Sam had spent more than half that summer at the junkyard though, Dean shoved under cars and covered in grease the whole time while Sam struggled through his first real growth spurt, bones stretching and lengthening into awkward skinny limbs that absolutely fucked his ability to spar for months before he got used to his new height, only for it to start all over again. The thought of Sam manages to wipe the smile off his face like it had never been there, and he watched as the lingering smile on Bobby’s face disappeared as well as he took in the change in Dean’s demeanour. 

“Jim told me what happened,” Bobby said, and Dean was abruptly grateful that he wouldn’t have to confess to this man as well, someone who had had just as much a hand in raising him and Sam as John had for at least a third of Dean’s childhood. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to bear looking into Bobby’s eyes and telling him that he’d lost Sam, the thought sending an aching pain through him. The only thing that would be worse would be telling their Dad, and Dean had already had to do that once in his life. Though he supposed that at least this time that wouldn’t be a conversation he would be forced to have. _Small favours_ , and the thought was sharp with bitterness. Bobby stood, heading towards the inside of the house. “I pulled some books this morning,” he said as he held the door open. “There’ll be something in one of them that’ll help us find your daddy and your brother.” Dean didn’t say anything, just followed after Bobby into the warm interior. He glanced around as he stepped through the devil’s trap Bobby had painted on the ceiling, but as with the property outside, while the piles of books, weapons, and bottles had almost certainly shifted and changed over the years, it somehow managed to also look exactly the same as it had the last time he’d been there. On the old wooden desk that was probably at least as old as Bobby was a stack of worn books, some of them seeming to only be held together through sheer determination, a few with actual duct tape, which would probably make whatever Benedictine monk hand wrote it die on the spot if they could see it now. Bobby headed towards the desk, nodding towards the low stained couch against the wall as he did so. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, and Dean let himself sink down into the familiar piece of furniture, the springs groaning in protest beneath him, depositing his still mostly-full beer on one of the few free inches of space on the coffee table in front of him. 

“Thanks Bobby,” he finally said, and Bobby shrugged awkwardly. 

“No need to get all mushy on me now boy,” he said, tossing a book at Dean’s face as if to emphasize the point. Dean half smiled as he looked down at the large book now in his hands. “Now, that’s a book of spells Penny – do you remember Penny?” Bobby didn’t give Dean any time to respond before he continued, “Penny got it off a witch in Mexico back in, oh, would have been around ‘86?” Bobby looked off towards the ceiling, forehead wrinkled in thought before he looked back at Dean. “How’s your Spanish these days?” he asked. 

“¿Cómo está el tuyo, viejo?” Dean replied, and fought the urge to smile when Bobby glared back at him. He turned back to his stack of books, muttering something about respect and kids these days, and Dean turned his attention back to the book in his hands instead. The cover had a crudely drawn pentagram on it, and when he opened it he saw that the entire thing was handwritten by someone who apparently had only the loosest grasp on what shape latin letters should be. Sighing, Dean hooked his beer off the table before letting himself sink further back into the couch. 

It took two days, most of two cases of beer, and two trips out into the yard to beat the shit out of an old junker with a crowbar before they found the spell. It was in a small book of spells that Bobby explained had been given to him by a hedgewitch in Nova Scotia a couple of years earlier. There was a slightly dreamy look in Bobby’s eyes when he talked about her, and Dean decided not to ask any more questions, quickly moving along to asking Bobby about ingredients. Bobby peered down at the page, the neat writing and clear directions making Dean despair for the seven books – none of which had the decency to be written in English – that he’d spent the last couple of days struggling through. 

“Nothing I don’t already have,” he finally said, before meeting Dean’s eyes. “We can do the spell today.” 

It was a simple spell really, in the end. It felt almost like it should have been more complicated, for how long it had taken them to find it, for the importance of what it was being used for. Dean couldn’t help but feel like it was somewhat anticlimactic as he spread out one of the two maps of the continental United States that he’d scavenged from the gloveboxes of some of the junkers outside. There should have been something to mark how important this was, how the information that he was about to learn would either heal him or wound him beyond repairing, beyond hope and sanity. It seemed ridiculous that all it would take was a small bowl of herbs, a six line chant, and a dropped match for Dean to find out whether or not he really existed as a person anymore. 

“Who do you want to–” Bobby said as he stepped up next to Dean. 

“Dad,” Dean said, not even letting Bobby finish. He tore his eyes from the map to meet Bobby’s wary gaze. He looked at Dean like he was something fragile, someone who would break at the slightest bit of additional. Which maybe wasn’t wrong, he thought as he looked back at the map. “Start with my Dad,” he said. There was a long pause, and when he looked back at Bobby, his face was filled with hesitation. 

“This spell tracks souls Dean,” he reminded him, “so–.”

“If my Dad’s dead it won’t work,” Dean finished. “I know. And I know I probably–” Dean broke off, voice cracking slightly, and he cleared his throat as Bobby looked away. “I know I probably won’t ever find him,” he said. “But I just need to know, for sure.” Bobby nodded, looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. 

“Okay,” he said, “then let’s do this.” 

Bobby’s recitation of the Acadian French was clumsy, but when he dropped the match into the bowl of herbs the edges of the map still flared bright with yellow flames at the edges. They watched in silence as they steadily ate at the paper, drawing closer and closer to the middle. Dean frowned as he noticed that one side seemed to be burning faster than the other, or maybe it was just that–. The thought broke off as his heart began to pound in his ears, both him and Bobby watching in stunned silence as the fire burned an increasingly narrow circle, tighter and together until only a scrap of map remained. The fire went out all at once, leaving only a scrap of paper with a single town name on it. There was no sound in the room, both of them staring down at that small piece of hope that Dean barely even dared to acknowledge. 

“Could we have done it wrong?” he asked, voice shaking, and Bobby looked down at the instructions again before shaking his head. 

“No,” he said. “No Dean, I think your daddy’s alive.” Dean could have choked on the wave of relief that swept through him, something deep inside of him that had barely been holding him together, barely keeping him from falling apart, was allowed to loosen its grip just a little bit. Just as quickly after though, came the type of unfamiliar anger that Dean had very rarely ever directed at his father. _Why the fuck haven’t you answered my calls?_ Dean thought as he looked at the piece of paper, slightly singed at the edges, and the smudged blue words on it labelling the town of Red Oak. _I”m going to have to tell him about Sam_ followed shortly after, and Dean ignored the wave of fear and nausea that rolled through him at the thought. Instead he turned around to grab the second map, pocketing the small scrap revealing where his father had apparently been hiding from him, avoiding Dean and letting him think he was dead rather than just pick up his fucking phone, the absolute bastard, why would he–. 

“Let’s do Sam,” Dean said abruptly, and ignored the worried look that Bobby gave him. He’d accepted that the fire would consume the entire map for John, that it would act as nothing more than the confirmation of a truth that most of him had already accepted. That it hadn’t was something that would take him a minute to adjust to, but in the meantime there was no reason to wait to find out where Sam was. _What if it can’t find Sam?_ The thought rose to Dean’s mind unbidden, making him falter in laying the map down on the table. For it to not find Sam… Dean hadn’t let himself even consider that that might happen, but now, standing and waiting for Bobby to mix a second batch of herbs, awash in the relief and rage of his father’s continued existence, it was hard to keep ignoring the possibility. _What if Sam was dead? What would he do? Who was he, without his younger brother, the boy he’d raised?_ Dean clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms. _No_ , he told himself. Not yet, he wasn’t thinking that yet. Not until he knew for sure. 

“Ready?” Bobby asked, making him jump slightly. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice flat as he continued to stare down at the map. There was a moment of silence, but when Dean didn’t look up, Bobby began the chant again. Sam’s name stood out even more awkwardly than John’s had amongst the mess of vowels and consonants that made up the chant and by the time Bobby reached the final line, Dean had stopped breathing entirely. He watched as Bobby struck the match, holding it and the bowl above the map, so tense he thought if anyone touched him he would shatter into a million pieces, never to be repaired. The match dropped from Bobby’s fingers, spinning through the air before hitting the herbs with a muffled surge of heat and consumption, the copper metal of the bowl reflecting heat and flame back on itself as the mess of ingredients ignited completely. Dean’s eyes travelled from the bowl to the map, his breath catching in his throat as he saw flame begin to lick at the edges of the map, watching as the flame slid across the map leaving behind–. 

Dean and Bobby both stared down in shocked silence as the flame skimmed across the surface of the map, twisting around itself in a way that seemed almost hungry, seeking, though the paper below stayed just as clear from the blister of flame, the flaking of ash, as it had been before Bobby had cast the spell. Finally, the flame went out, never once making a mark on the page, disappearing with a strange quiet rustling. 

“Bobby,” Dean said, voice breaking and he felt his legs give out beneath him but didn’t seem to be able to move, to do anything to prevent himself from collapsing to his knees. The sound that they made when they met the floor sounded like it would hurt, it should hurt, but Dean couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t process anything. All he could do was stare at the map, the untouched map, the map that should have shown him where his brother was, god, _Sammy_. His vision wavered strangely, and he couldn’t tell if it was because he was crying or because he was going to pass out with the pain of his world ending, his world having ended who knew how long ago and he hadn’t known, _how could he have not known?_

Pain, sharp and sudden, the crack of palm meeting skin still ringing through the air and then his wide, surprised eyes were meeting Bobby’s, alight with fear and sadness. 

“Dean,” Bobby said. Dean blinked at him, hearing the word but not really processing it, not able to process anything other than the fact that he’d left Sam, he’d abandoned him, sent him out into the world on his own and he didn’t once in four fucking yea–.

This time, Dean managed to catch ahold of Bobby’s wrist before his palm made contact with Dean’s face. Dean didn’t say anything, just stared at Bobby, feeling his entire body beginning to shake. 

“Dean, he’s not dead,” Bobby said. _He hadn’t called him, not once, his stupid pride, he could ha–_

“What?” he said, voice distant and unfamiliar to his own ears. 

“Sam’s not dead,” Bobby said. “If he was dead the whole map would have burned. I can show you, look, stand up.” Dean dragged himself to his feet, legs shaking beneath him as he let Bobby guide him back to the table. He stood, numb and disconnected, feeling like he was standing somewhere left of himself as he watched Bobby mix up another batch of herbs. He only registered that Bobby had said his name when the other man hit his shoulder, drawing Dean’s attention back to him. “Do you remember Ian? The hunter from Virginia with the wood–.”

“–eye,” Dean finished, voice flat. “Yeah, I remember him.”

“You remember how he died?” Bobby asked, and a flicker of irritation managed to draw more of Dean’s attention back to the present moment.

“Yeah Bobby, hard to forget,” he said. “I had one of his teeth embedded in my _arm_.” Bobby nodded, expression unchanging. 

“So you know he’s dead, for sure?” Bobby said, and the flare of irritation was hotter this time, stronger, making Dean narrow his eyes.

“Yeah Bobby, I kno–” Dean started, but Bobby abruptly turned away from him, starting up the chant again, and oh. _Oh._ Suddenly Dean couldn’t breath again, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but watch and wait as Bobby repeated the same words as before, throwing Ian’s name in this time. The match dropped, fragile wood slipping from between calloused fingers, and somehow it felt like it took longer to fall this time, the herbs taking impossibly long to catch. Dean felt he was moving through something thick and viscous as his eyes slowly moved from the flames licking above the rim of the bowl to the map below which had again caught fire except– except now it actually was burning, from the outside edges in, same as it had with John. This time though, the flames raced across the paper evenly, without hesitation, devouring and starving for each drop of ink, each twist of a river and winding curve of a mountain range. 

When it blinked out, there was nothing on the table but ash. Dean stared, hardly able to bring himself to understand what he’d just watched, what it meant for Sam.

 _Sammy_. 

“See?” Bobby said. “He’s still–”

“He’s alive,” Dean said, taking a huge gasping breath. “Sam’s alive.” He stumbled backwards until his back hit the wall, then slid down it, bracing his arms on his bruised knees and putting his head between them. “Oh god, he’s alive.” There was a shuffling movement above him before a dark shape moved into his peripheral vision – Bobby, crouching down beside him – and put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean looked up, blinking away tears that he refused to acknowledge. 

“What does it mean?” he asked, hating how much like a lost child he sounded but unable to help it, unable to sound like anything else in that moment. “Bobby, what does it–”

“He’s hidden,” Bobby said. “By something more powerful than I’ve ever seen before.” 

“But he’s alive?” Dean repeated, just so he could hear Bobby say it again.

“Sam’s alive,” Bobby said, and Dean let the words echo in his head, let the certainty that Bobby put behind them sink into his heart, slow his breathing. Still, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to fully believe it, not completely, until he had that kid safe in the circle of his arms. 

“He’s alive,” Dean whispered to himself, and used those words to force himself to his feet. Bobby watched him, expression still wary, until he saw that Dean seemed steady enough despite the way he was still shaking slightly, leftover horror and adrenaline and mind-numbing sorrow still shocking its way through his system. 

“What now?” Bobby asked, voice cautious, like he wasn’t sure he should even ask, like it was a risk, a push he wasn’t sure he should make. Dean stared down at the pile of ashes that had once been a map. 

“Now… now I go find Dad,” he said. “And then I’ll find whatever took Sam, and I’ll fucking tear it apart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this a couple days early to get it counted in my 2020 stats lmao, but we'll be doing saturday updates moving forward :))
> 
> Thank you again to Eliza for the beta, you are the absolute best!!


	4. British Columbia, Canada, 2006

**Somewhere along the Stikine River, east of Ehahcezetle Mountain, British Columbia, Canada, 2006**

Sam knew he needed to get out of the valley. 

It was too flat down here, too open. The wind that whipped over the snow banks was sending snow gusting into his vision, sharply stinging against his cheeks, despite the fact that it was ostensibly a clear and sunny day. The sparse scattering of trees that filled the valley were no match for the force of the air twisting around them, their limbs creaking and groaning under it’s force. Sam tugged the hood up on his parka again, hunching forward so that the wind couldn’t grab hold of it and yank it off again. Under the added protection of the rim of fur now circling his face, he turned in place, taking stock of his surroundings, and his options. To his right he could just see the curve of the river, surrounded by rocks swept free of snow by the wind, flashes of the river rushing by still visible amongst planes of ice, deep blue in hue and thrusting jaggedly upward where it had broken against each other and refrozen, thrusting its harsh edges upwards to catch the sunlight. It would be difficult to cross, dangerous as well. Even if he was able to find a path across the ice, unbroken by the whitecapped water, there was no way for him to know how thick the ice was, and if he fell through… well, it would just be a contest to see what killed him first, the rocks lining the riverbed, or the cold choke of the water itself. 

Ahead of him stretched out the river valley, open and exposed. Covered in a thick, smooth blanket of snow, it was blinding to look at, the trees interrupting its blank expanse few and far between, though they grew denser as he continued to turn, looking towards the mountains that were to the left of him. The forest grew steadily thicker the further away from the river it went until it finally reached the point of being impenetrable by Sam’s eyes as it rose higher and higher up the side of the mountain before, high above his head, it began to thin again, giving way to ice and snow and blank, sheer rock. Behind him was much the same as ahead, save for a slightly denser population of trees, and the staggering path of Sam’s own tracks, the only blemish on an otherwise uninterrupted plateau. He traced his eyes back to the point where his tracks began, two boot prints in the middle of an otherwise uninterrupted hill of snow. They were already being swept away by the wind, filled in by the snow still sliding past him atop the thin crust of the snowbanks. In an hour, there would be no sign that he’d been there at all. Turning back, Sam considered his options. Crossing the river would be dangerous, unjustifiably so unless he knew for certain that it was necessary. Since he didn’t yet know anything more than what he had observed for himself, it would be stupid to try and make it to the southern half of the valley, at least not now. Maybe later, if it did prove itself necessary. For now though, for now he decided to follow his first instinct, the one that had hit him in the gut when his boots first touched the snow, like a fist accompanied by a screaming wave of ice and cold. _He needed to get out of the valley_. 

Urgency burning even brighter inside him, Sam turned and began the slow, laborious task of walking towards the forest. With every step he had to fight against both the wind attempting to push him over and the snow attempting to pull him under, to weigh him down and smother him inside its icy grip. The effort to push through the dense, white powder, undisturbed by anything spare the wind and maybe the occasional animal, though Sam had yet to see any, was immense. He quickly found himself sweating beneath his parka, experience already warning him that the sweat would turn to ice the second he stopped moving. There wasn’t anything he could do about that though, and being hot with exertion was better than the alternative. Breathing heavily through his nose, Sam glanced up through slitted eyes to see how far he was from the more forgiving shelter of the forest. _Fuck_. He’d probably gone maybe a couple hundred meters, and there was still at least five miles to go until he would breach the treeline proper. Gritting his teeth, he put his head down and forced his legs to keep moving, keep pushing forwards, snow churning around his thighs. He’d had his arms hanging loose along his sides when he’d started walking, but as he kept moving, kept pushing forward, he found himself raising them to hug around himself, tucking his hands into his armpits in a hopeless attempt to keep the wind from penetrating his skin, needling down to his bones. He supposed he should be grateful that he’d been provided with as much protection as he had been – the boots were warm, and dry, and he’d been allowed two pairs of thick wool socks. Long johns, jeans, and a waterproof shell protected his legs from the worst of the wind, while a heavy sweater layered over a long-sleeved undershirt and under the heavy parka protected his torso and arms. The mittens over his hands were warm as well, and lined with fur, though he was already dreading needing to take them off later. He found himself wishing for a hat or snow goggles, but quickly dismissed the thought. _Greedy._ He hadn’t been given a gun, just the long machete that currently hung atop his parka in a sheath running half the length of his spine, and the twin blades strapped to his thighs, high enough that getting at them with the parka on would be a struggle. He’d thought the fact that all of the clothing was a dark, mottled brown was an obvious trap when he’d first realized where he was, had bristled at how exposed he’d be, how much he’d stand out against the endless blank canvas of the snowy plane. Headed towards the line of brown tree trunks in the distance though, he could see how they could help hide him instead, help keep him from turning from the hunter into the hunted. 

The forest was naturally formed, untouched and unaltered by human hands, and the treeline was shaped accordingly: not a sharp line dividing the valley from the base of the mountain, but a slow scattering of trees outwards from the dense woods, so that walking into the forest was akin to wading into a lake. Sam wasn’t in the forest, and then suddenly he was, the trees growing denser and denser around him until he looked up and realized that the wind was no longer as piercing, the snow no longer as deep. He turned, looked behind him, towards where his footprints slowly disappeared into the distance and the blowing snow. From here, he could no longer see the river, a combination of the fading light and the white powder billowing across the base of the valley conspiring to hide it from his sight. He glanced up at the sky, saw that the sun was just beginning to dip below the mountains at the far end of the valley. It was difficult to judge what time it was, not knowing where he was or when it was, not that he supposed it really mattered. The night would be as long as the night was, the day as long as the day was, and awareness of those two facts would hardly change how immutable they were. The high peaks around him would mean shorter days though, he realized, and could only hope that he would be able to find decent shelter before the light disappeared entirely. Lighting a fire would be a risk, one he wasn’t sure he wanted to take his first night out in the wilderness, when he was still warm and dry and in relatively good shape, aside from the bruises across his back that sent faint flickering waves of pain through his entire body when he turned back towards the forest too quickly. He grimaced. It wasn’t bad enough to really affect him, nothing he hadn’t and couldn’t work through, but there was no way to completely remove the possibility that the pain might make itself known at the most inopportune moment, that it might cost him valuable time and mobility. Would have been nice, to not have had a rod broken over his back right before a hunt, but he truly had no one to blame for that but himself. _Should have been faster_ , he thought, not for the first time. Letting out a long breath, Sam braced himself, and continued walking. 

He was covering ground faster now, at least, he thought as he picked his way through the woods. There was still snow covering the entirety of the forest floor, bending the branches of trees and making everything sound flat and muffled, but aside from the occasional clearing, deep with snow, it never went any higher than his mid-calf. His legs ached with the effort he’d expended earlier, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly buoyed by how much easier travelling was now as he headed deeper and deeper into the woods. He still hadn’t seen any living creature other than himself, though he had heard the cawing of ravens earlier, letting him know that he wasn’t as alone in the universe as it felt. There’d been the occasional track too, mostly deer, some rabbit, a few he hadn’t been able to easily identify but were small enough not to worry him. The wind had thankfully died down and between that and the shelter of the trees, Sam was no longer forced to walk bent over against the force of the wind, was able to finally stand straight, looking out at the forest from beneath the fur rim of the parka hood with sharp, careful eyes. The hood ruined his peripheral vision, but Sam still couldn’t bring himself to give up the warmth it provided him, instead keeping his screaming instincts at bay with frequent surveys of the forest to the left and right of him, eyes scanning over bushes, rocks, fallen trees and stumps, a careful search for movement, for anything that might be out in the wilderness with him. 

Sam didn’t think he’d gone more than a mile into the forest before the gentle upwards slope began to transform into the sharp rises and falls that formed the base of the mountain, trending ever upwards. The effort of walking uphill quickly became an equal replacement for the effort of pushing through the snow of the valley, sweat again soaking into his undershirt, his breath coming in ragged pants that he couldn’t help but feel frustrated by, though he knew realistically he’d walked at least at least 20 miles and physical exhaustion at this point was well in line with the well-tested and painfully familiar limits of his body. The light was fading quickly though, and he wasn’t likely to make it much further before it disappeared, so he began to look around himself with a different purpose than before, trying to spot anywhere that would act as good shelter for the night. He could always build shelter, but he would prefer not to for now. The fewer signs he could leave was better – with nothing other than his instincts to rely on, sleeping was dangerous, but necessary. He knew from experience that he could push it to five days without sleep before he would begin to hallucinate in earnest, but the cost to his reflexes and coordination began to be paid far earlier. The trade off between sleep and safety came at a heavy price either way, and was utterly unavoidable. _This would be so much easier if I wasn’t human,_ Sam thought as he peered over a small drop, checking for any safe, hidden space beneath where it curved outwards. He spent a brief, useless minute fantasizing about warm fur wrapped directly around his flesh, long teeth and jagged claws and uncomplicated and unending hunger. For a second he swore he could almost smell fresh blood, steaming hot on the frozen ground, but when he looked around, suddenly on edge, there was nothing to be seen. Just his imagination, and the cold then. Shaking his head, Sam continued on his path. He didn’t have to go much further though– just a few meters from where he’d been standing was the fallen body of a huge tree, the grasping tangle of its roots stretching above Sam’s head. It had probably been felled in a recent storm, based on the lack of deterioration, and it was where the base of the trunk had fallen over a dip in the ground that Sam found his shelter. One side of the trunk was pressed completely flat to the ground, leaving only one side of the hollow exposed to the wider forest. The dip was maybe half as tall as he was, but it was deep enough that he would be able to push himself deep inside, effectively removing himself from the worst of the elements. Sam drew his machete, swept it into the darkest corners of the recess. Sure that there wasn’t anything else using the trunk as shelter, Sam walked further forward, until he reached the crushed and broken limbs of the tree’s branches. Putting his knife back in its sheath, Sam used brute force to rip off the dead boughs, ignoring the shower of still green needles that fell over and around him. In the last of the fading light, Sam walked back to the hollow, laying the branches down before stepping over them, going onto his hands and knees and crawling into the small space. Turning so that his back was against the protective back wall, Sam grabbed the branches and pulled them in, covering as much of the opening as he was able by wedging them between the frozen ground and the trunk of the tree, and either side of the mouth of the opening. It wasn’t perfect, probably wouldn’t provide any sort of cover during the day, but Sam was sure that it would do for the night, unless something far more dangerous, something with senses far beyond any ordinary animal, found him. There wasn’t anything more he could do than what he’d already done if that was the case though, so he settled himself tighter against the back wall, pillowing his head on one of his arms and listened to the sound of the wind rushing by outside, erasing any signs of his passage into the woods. 

The morning dawned cold and clear, wind no longer whipping around and through the trunks and branches of the empty and isolated landscape. Silence was the only thing to greet him when Sam pushed the branches out of the entrance to the hollow, blinking in the dim grey light of early morning. He climbed out, limbs aching from sleeping curled into a small ball, his back even more sore than the day before, muscles tense from both the cold and a night spent on edge, ready to wake at the slightest sign of something nearing his small shelter. Nothing had though, and the snow surrounding him was smooth and unbroken. Sam stretched, shaking out his limbs, bending first one arm across his chest, then the other. He frowned when the motion elicited a strange crackling noise from the inside of his parka, and he unfastened the clasps to peer inside. There was a pocket in the lining, just over his heart, and he used his teeth to pull off one of his mittens so that he could reach inside of it. It wasn’t until his hand closed around its contents that he considered that this might be a trap, a test, but by then it was too late, so he just pulled his hand back out, finding himself holding a granola bar and two hand warmers. He blinked at them in blank surprise for a long moment, before thinking _Merihem,_ a wave of fondness flowing through him as he shook his head. It was a stupid risk oh her part, giving him these small provisions, something that would have bloody consequences for both of them if anyone had found them, but it made him smile even as he tucked them back into the pocket. His hands were still relatively warm thanks to the thick mittens, warm enough that it wouldn’t affect his dexterity, and he wasn’t yet so hungry that it was a problem, so he made the easy decision to save both of them for later, when things became more dire. He had no doubt they would – he was surrounded by a seemingly endless wilderness, with no idea what he was looking for or where it was. There was no guessing how long he would be out here. 

While his hand was still free, Sam bent over and picked up a handful of clean, fresh snow, putting it into his mouth and letting it melt on his tongue until he could swallow the water. He ate two more handfuls before he brushed his hand off on the outside of his parka and pulled the mitten back on. Looking around himself, he decided to keep heading upwards, towards the peak of the mountain. It was as good of a direction as any other, and the high ground did hold the potential of affording him some perspective that he wasn’t able to grasp while he was still down here, buried within the body of the forest at the base on the mountain. Taking a deep breath, he began to walk. 

It was easier going than it had been the day before, and sooner than he’d expected the trees once again began to thin out around him, the slope growing steeper and steeper until he was finally forced to begin following a zig-zagging trail that he stumbled upon, rather than just continuing to head straight up the side of the mountain. The path was narrow, but clearly often used, most likely by deer or other animals traversing the mountain range, hard packed and solid amongst the increasingly barren rocks. His attention was divided between making sure he wasn’t about to trip and fall off the side of the mountain and warily scanning his surroundings, alert to any sound, any movement, that would tell him he wasn’t alone out here. Despite this, it was the smell that ended up being his first warning, the heavy iron tang of blood hanging in the air, making him tense up. Drawing his machete, he slowly moved forward, shaking his head so that the hood fell backwards, clearing his peripheral vision as he headed towards where he thought the smell was coming from. Stepping around a curve in the path, he stopped, eyes flicking over the sight in front of him. 

There was nothing living left on the wide clearing in front of him, though judging by the blood still slowly sliding down the surface of rocks, dripping off of the trees, that hadn’t been the case for very long. If it weren’t for the shreds of orange coats, the bloodstained cloud of feathers scattered all around, he wasn’t sure he would have recognized the bodies for humans. They were torn apart so completely that there weren’t even the skeletons remaining to identify them as such, though he did spot half a skull almost completely buried in a drift of snow. It was like they had been put through a meat grinder, viscera scattered everywhere, bones snapped easily into shards that stuck out of the snow, appearing from between rocks like the first flowers of spring, blooming red and hot out of the white powder. The level of destruction was almost impressive in its complete obliteration. There was still steam coming off of the cooling bodies, and Sam would guess that they hadn’t been dead for more than twenty minutes, if that. Whatever had done this would still be nearby then, and his back twinged in pain as he tensed up at the realization. The scene was bloody enough, covered in enough remaining meat and organs that he had to wonder if whatever had killed what had been, based on the boots he was able to spot, two hikers had even eaten any of them, or if had torn them apart for the mere sport of it, for the pleasure and thrill of the kill enough for whatever had done it. There was no way to know for sure unless he went through the remains to see if there was anything in particular missing though, and Sam had no desire, nor the time, to do any such thing. It would be messy, and was unlikely to give him any more information than what he already had. Instead, Sam cast another wary eye around him. He spotted two backpacks leaned neatly up against a tree, and realized that the two humans must have stopped for a break when the monster had found them. _Stupid,_ he thought scornfully. He didn’t understand how anyone survived, walking through the world with their eyes stubbornly shut to everything around them. If it hadn’t been the monster, it probably would have been the weather, or a cougar, or maybe an avalanche. _Pathetic_. At least he knew he was close to whatever it was that had done this, and he let himself experience a momentary wave of stark relief that he wasn’t going to have to spend weeks wandering the mountains after all. He looked up the steep incline to the left of him, wondering if whatever it was had gone straight up the mountain, before crossing the plateau to check the other side, trying to avoid stepping on as much of the blood and meat as possible. On the far side he found what he was looking for, sighing in relief that he wasn’t going to have to try and scale the side of the mountain after all: against the rock, a smear of blood, and further down the path, a small puddle slowly soaking into the earth. It had gone this way, and Sam kept his machete in his hand as he began to slowly follow after it. 

There were a couple of times, long stretches of bare rock, where Sam became convinced that he’d lost track of the monster, that it had left the path in favour of clambering up or down the mountain directly, but he always picked it up again as he slowly worked his way up the side of the mountain, following the trail back and forth, back and forth, the air growning thinner and thinner the higher he went, his ears popping with the increase in altitude. He was forced to put his machete back in its sheath during a particularly tricky and narrow portion of the trail, pulling off his mittens and shoving them in his pockets as well, freeing his fingers to hold onto the rock wall to the right of him, trying to stay as far as possible from the sharp drop inches away from his boots. He almost slipped at one point, heart in his throat and blood pounding in his ears as he just stood, clinging to the rockwall for a long, horrible moment before he felt safe moving again. The path turned a corner after that, opened up wide, and Sam realized that it was taking him around a curve of rock, a ripple in the side of the mountain, flat and thankfully clear of the loose shale that had covered previous stretches. To the left was still that same sharp drop, not quite a sheer cliff but close enough that Sam was sure a fall would prove fatal, the distant tops of trees threatening to impale anything that might land on them. To the right was a small cluster of trees, just barely hanging on to the mountainside, before the rock wall once again rose up, high and imposing and impossible to climb. Not that he had any intention of trying, Sam thought to himself as he began to quickly cross the easier stretch of path. It was a relief, after how precarious the previous section had been, to walk forward with confidence, and it was likely that relief that made Sam, just for a minute, just long enough, to lose some of his caution, to let go of the sharp observation of his surroundings. It was pure luck then, really, that he hadn’t quite made it to where the path once again narrowed when it came around the curve, appearing in front of him like a spector, like a nightmare, freezing him in place so abruptly he almost stumbled. 

The monster was huge, almost the size of a horse, and it stalked towards him on feet capped with thick, black claws, grinding into the rock with every step. The white fur that covered most of its body would probably be a perfect disguise for the winter landscape if it weren’t currently contrasted with the dull grey of the rocks surrounding them instead, thick and matted in places with what might be mud, or old blood. It smelt like rotting meat in a way that made Sam wonder how it was ever able to stalk its prey, though he supposed it didn’t matter if something smelled it coming if it could move faster than them, if it could easily catch up with them and rip out their throat no matter how far or fast they ran. He figured the only reason he hadn’t smelled it earlier was thanks to the wind sliding around the side of the mountain, coming from Sam’s back and pushing the creature’s scent away from him. Proximity drove it into his nostrils though, and Sam had to fight the instinctive urge to gag. Watching how it moved forward, Sam quickly became certain that his hypothesis was correct – it could easily outpace him, the slow roll of muscles beneath fur revealing just how strong it was, its legs sturdy and thick with the promise of motion. It hadn’t used that strength, that speed yet though, was still continuing its slow walk forwards towards Sam. Its tail, thick and shaggy like a wolf, thin and long like a rat, was whipping back and forth behind it, sending scatters of stones falling whenever it hit against the rock wall. 

When he was a kid, his father had once taken him and Dean to a museum, one of the rare times that John had decided that it was worth it to spend money on something like that. There’d been a handful of fossils on display, small dinosaurs with missing pieces and strange, ragged bones. One of them had been a sabre-toothed tiger, a smilodon, and Sam had stared at its long teeth, the gape of its jaw held permanently open by the wire that was the only thing now holding its bones together. He was reminded of it then, with a sharp pang, staring into the rolling yellow eyes of the creature stalking towards him. He couldn’t tell if the creature’s head was bare bone or if it was simply covered in skin so white, so tight to the bone that it took on the appearance of a skull left out to bleach in the sun. The hollow, shadowed eye sockets were deep enough that the glimmer of its eyes seemed to be floating in their depth, unmoored by flesh or blood. Its mouth was split open all the way back, showing off every single long, black tooth, razor sharp and wider around than the handle of Sam’s knives. It’s red tongue lolled out between them, tasting the air, and as Sam watched its nostrils flared, scenting him, the fear sweat that he could feel leaching from his pores despite his best attempts to breathe through the fear. The lower half of its jaw was soaked with the blood of the humans Sam had passed earlier, staining its chest and all the way down to its front feet. He swallowed, but the pain of the memory that had flashed through his head earlier had thrown him off balance, lingering in his head as he tried to slowly back away. His heel hit a rock just as he was beginning to reach over his shoulder for the handle of his machete, and his eyes widened as he began to fall, unable to stop himself from collapsing backwards. 

Sam kept his gaze locked on the monster as he fell, and he could swear it almost seemed to grin, mouth stretching impossibly wider as it wound up like a cat, strength gathering as it prepared to leap forward. Sam abandoned his attempt to get at the machete, instead thrusting his hands downwards in unison, trying to roll his shoulders forward so that his head wouldn’t hit the rock when he landed. He had just managed to hike up the bottom of the parka and get ahold of the handles of the two knives strapped to his thighs by the time he hit the ground, pain echoing dully through his entire body as his back connected with unforgiving rock, sharper for the injuries already lingering there. He drew the knives just as the creature leapt forward, and he had a split second to prepare, to aim, before it was on him, mouth wide and hungry. Instead of landing directly atop him, it went lower, Sam’s legs just barely covered by the bulk of its upper body as its head drove downwards towards him. It would have been better, easier, if it had gone for his throat, exposing its stomach to Sam’s blades, but it seemed to want to instead rip into his belly, to spread his guts through the snow the same way it had done with the hikers. Sam moved quickly, flipping the knives over to face back towards his elbows while simultaneously raising his arms, risking adding additional force behind the teeth aimed to reach deep within his stomach as he brought the sharp blades down against the top of the creature’s head. Without any real flesh covering the bone there was nothing for the knives to sink into, but they still managed to split the thin layer of skin protecting it’s skull wide open, metal grinding against bone for a short second before the creature yelped and danced backwards, blood as black as oil running thick and slick from the wounds Sam had given it. It stood out starkly against the white of its skin, dripping down its face and sizzling where it hit rock and snow alike. A few drops splattered across Sam’s legs as it retreated, and he had to bite down on a scream as it ate through the layers of fabric within seconds to reach his flesh, the acidic blood just as hungry to eat through his skin beneath. He breathed through the pain, quick inhales as he pushed himself backwards, scrambling back to his feet. The creature shook its head, sending a spray of black blood scattering through the air, and Sam had to swallow another scream as a cluster of droplets hit his arm, eating through the parka just as easily as it had his pants, making the flesh beneath it bubble as it ate its way down through his skin. For a second, he thought about what might have happened if he’d actually been able to cut its stomach open while it was above him, and nausea rolled through him. 

While Sam had been breathing through the pain, the monster had apparently managed to recover enough to take another go at him, and Sam barely had time to brace himself before it was rushing forward again, it’s head now coated in a lurid mixture of its own blood and the blood of its victims. Sam flipped one of his knives forward, widening his stance and staggering his legs as it moved forward. He had a brief second to wish that he had the time to strip off his parka, to mourn the mobility lost in its thick, warm layers before it was upon him and the thought disappeared in a rush of adrenaline. Its jaw opened impossibly wide as it let out a noise that was somewhere between a human shriek and the hunting howl of a hellhound. He waited until the last second before dodging to the side, feeling one of its teeth catch and rip the fabric of his coat as he swiped at it’s throat. He couldn’t tell how deeply he managed to cut it through the mess of fur covering the hidden flesh there, but when he and the creature both swung back to face each other again, their positions now reversed, he saw that it was enough to stain the fur black with blood, though apparently not enough to slow the creature for long, as it almost immediately began to move back towards him. Sam had only a second to brace himself, to consider his options, before it was again driving at him with an open mouth and lolling tongue.

This time, Sam barely managed to throw himself to the side, his back screaming in pain as he rolled over the rock covered ground, slamming into one of the trees. He’d stabbed towards the creature as he’d gone, but the handle of his knife had been jerked from his hand, lost to the motion of his retreat. He was glad to see though, as he blinked and scrambled back to his feet, that the blade had not been lost in vain: it was now protruding from a bloom of black on the creature’s flank. The monster seemed angrier for the added wound, the growl that echoed from it’s chest seeming to shake the ground with its strength. Sam swallowed, and reached over his shoulder to finally draw the larger blade of his machete just in time for the creature to once again charge him. This time, Sam moved forward as well, not waiting for the creature to reach him before he went on the offense. His best bet was to either get under its jaw, take another go at its throat, or go underneath it to the underbelly that was almost always the most vulnerable part of any creature, natural or not. He was prepared to dodge to the side again, to use the creature’s momentum against it and reach under it with the machete, had shifted his feet to do so, but it must have seen it, or maybe it had just learned from last time, because it twisted with him, and before he knew what was happening it’s strong jaws were clamping down on the arm holding the machete. 

Sam screamed as its teeth sunk deep into his skin, and he was sure that the thick fabric of the parka was the only thing that prevented it from biting clean through him, ripping the arm right off, the grip on him just as tight and deadly as a beartrap. The machete dropped from his numb fingers, and he reacted more on instinct than from training, raising his free hand and bringing the blade held in it down with all the strength he could manage, driving it deep within the meat of the monster’s shoulder. The creature buckled as Sam felt something within it snap, the limb collapsing as it listed to the side with a whimper. It’s jaw loosened just enough for Sam to wrench his arm free with another scream of pain, the creature staggering back, Sam’s knife still buried in its flesh. Ignoring the blood streaming from the sleeve of his parka, soaking the fabric through, Sam kept his eyes on the monster as it struggled to recover from its own injury, its one leg now clearly useless, Sam’s knife having severed what was likely a tendon or something else equally critical. It wasn’t done yet though, its yellow eyes fixed on Sam, mouth open in a horrifying parody of a smile, mouth now smeared with Sam’s blood as well as its previous victim’s. It was preparing to attack again, undeterred by the damage Sam had already dealt it, the injuries hampering its movements, and Sam was officially out of weapons. Taking a deep breath, Sam forced himself to push the pain away, to reach deep inside himself for the silent, black emptiness at the core of him, still waters full of power and nightmares, and released it. The cool, clear water filled him until he was almost bursting with it, fingers shaking with energy and blood loss both as he pulled his arms back before thrusting them forward. The monster shrieked in confusion and pain, scrabbling desperately at the rock as it was shoved backwards across the ground. There was a brief second where it managed to hook its claws into the rock and it looked like it might manage to catch itself after all, but Sam pushed harder, barely noticing as blood began to run from his nose, falling slick and hot over his open mouth. The monster’s claws broke with a loud, aching crack, and it skittered backwards, still desperately grasping at the rock before it finally reached the cliff’s edge and disappeared from Sam’s sight with a final, lingering howl that made his teeth ache. 

He wanted nothing more than to collapse on the ground, but he forced himself to walk forwards instead, looking down over the edge of the rock. Far below he could just see the mangled and broken corpse of the monster, body turned to nothing more than a sack full of meat and bones against the rocks, speared straight through by the tree it had come to rest upon. It was almost certainly dead, but Sam still reached out with his mind, a thin tendril of power winding down the mountainside, sending it snaking through the creature until it found its still and already cooling heart. Sam released the vision, staggered back a few steps from the edge before finally allowing his knees to buckle beneath him. His one arm was a mangled mess beneath his sleeve, and he knew if he didn’t address it soon he was going to pass out from blood loss. He ignored it though, instead using his undamaged arm to sweep clear the stretch of rock in front of his knees. Gritting his teeth, he dipped two of his fingers into the bloody holes left in the parka by the monster’s black teeth, coating his fingers in his own blood before pulling them back out and beginning to draw on the ground before him. His vision was beginning to waver by the time he finished the final stroke, and he could only hope he’d managed to do it correctly, blinking slowly as he pushed his hand entirely inside the sleeve of his parka. 

“Subter te duco e fovea, Merihem. Adiuro vos ad me invenient me et lugeret filium suum in captivitate diaboli,” he said as black spots danced in front of his vision, putting his blood-covered palm down in the very centre of the design smeared across the rock. His entire body swayed, eyelids heavier and heavier. “Detrahet me in domum suam,” he whispered, and the sound of something moving towards him across the stone was the last thing he was aware of before the darkness finally claimed him, pulling him completely under its sway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Eliza for continuing to beta!
> 
> And we finally get a good old fashioned monster hunt :)) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	5. San Juan de Guadalupe, Mexico, 2006

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: child death

**Just outside of San Juan de Guadalupe, Durango, Mexico, 2006**

It had been two days since Dean had left Shreveport, leaving only a charred corpse in a disturbed grave in his wake, and almost ten hours since he’d crossed the border at Nuevo Laredo. He’d only stopped twice since crossing the border at five that morning, and the only thing he could think about anymore was the possibility of a cold shower and face-planting on stale hotel sheets. The arid landscape that he’d been driving through for the last couple of hours hadn’t provided much in the way of a distraction from either the heat or the exhaustion, the flat desert interrupted only by scrub and the occasional cactus. The layer of dust coating the Impala had grown steadily thicker the further south he drove, drifting across the road and sticking to the black metal as if magnetized. The only sign of life he’d seen aside from the occasional other vehicle making their own way along the highway were a pair of gavilanes circling in the drafts far, far above the desert – barely anything more than black shadows against the searingly blue sky – and a coyote hunched over at the side of the row, gnawing on some unidentifiable roadkill, watching Dean pass with a wary gaze. Dean figured that the temperature had been sitting around 110º ever since the sun had cleared the horizon, and he’d long ago stripped down to just a t-shirt, long-sleeved flannel and jacket lying scattered across the front seat where someone else might have once ridden. Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, reaching over to grab the bottle of water sitting on the seat next to him, grimacing as he finished off the warm liquid. Tossing it into the back seat, he picked up his phone next, eyes flicking between it and the road as he hit redial. He turned down the stereo and listened as the phone rang, and rang, and rang, before finally it clicked over to voicemail. 

_This is Alex. Leave a message and the name of your monster and I’ll get back to you whenever I feel like it._

“Hey Alex, it’s Dean. Again. I’m gonna be in town in half an hour, fucking call me.” Dean ended the call with a harsh jab at the button. He couldn’t say it was unlike Alex to just drop off the map, but it was unusual for him to do it in the middle of a hunt, much less a hunt where he’d been the one to call Dean and ask him to come down and help him out. The last time he’d spoken to him had been when he’d stopped for lunch the day before in San Marcos, and he’d told Dean then that he was just going to stick to doing research until Dean got there, so he couldn’t have gotten into _that_ much trouble since then. Dean figured it was still even odds at this point that he was just passed out on a barstool, or in some random woman’s bed. Worse case scenario, he’d ended up in the drunk tank, and it wasn’t like Dean hadn’t broken him out of one of those before, though more often he’d been locked up right alongside him. He half smiled at the memory of the last time he’d seen Alex, almost five months earlier in Nashville; no hunt, just the two of them, a long series of dive bars all blending together, country music, the taste of whisky on his tongue and the heat of a body pressed tight against his. 

It wasn’t much longer before Dean noticed signs of life beginning to rise out of the desert – the distant shape of houses, old wooden fences, a small group of corriente cattle balefully watching him speed by, long curved horns and dirty red fur. The first part of the town proper that he caught sight of was, unsurprisingly, a large golden cross, glinting in the sunlight and drawing him in. It was one of the best parts of chasing hunts in Mexico really – unlike the States, it was never hard to find a Catholic church, with all their attendant, if misappropriated, tools for hunting. He glanced at his phone one last time, despite knowing that it hadn’t rung. Sure enough, the screen was dark and blank, and with a sigh he began to scan for a motel. If he was going to have to wait for Alex to pull himself out of a bottle or wherever else he’d wandered off to, he might as well have a nap while he did so, his eyes gritty and heavy with sleep and the dry dust of the desert. When he finally entered the town proper though, he arbitrarily turned towards the church that he’d spotted from outside of town, raising an eyebrow when he passed another one, and then another, before he finally turned a corner and found himself passing by the one he’d first seen all the way out in the desert. 

The ancient stone building, with its heavy wooden doors and stained glass windows, sat at odds with the more modern sign outside, _Templo de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe_ written in block letters above a listing of the service times. The buildings around it were just as incongruent, and Dean wondered if the church was maybe the last remaining part of the original town, if it had simply shifted and changed and evolved over the years around it, the church the only constant over decades of growth and change. This late in the day, it was silent and empty, and Dean drove past it without stopping. Just past the church however, he finally spotted a sign declaring that there were _vacante_ at the Hotel La Hacienda. Pulling into the parking lot and shutting off the Impala, Dean swept his eyes over the worn two-story building, painted an unremarkable reddish-brown with wrought iron railings lining the second story, before finally climbing out of the car. He groaned, loud and unselfconscious as he stretched the stiffness of the road from his limbs. He glanced around the parking lot, but didn’t see Alex’s rusty blue F-100 anywhere, not that that meant much – Dean didn’t even know yet if there were other hotels in the town or not. 

The bored front desk clerk took his credit card without even glancing at the name on it, and it was only a handful of minutes more before Dean was once again blinking in the sunlight. Grabbing his bag from the Impala, he walked through the tiled courtyard to the room matching the number on the key he’d been handed. The room, once he got inside of it, wasn’t much cooler than outside, but it was dark, and Dean let out a long breath of relief as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Throwing his bag towards the single bed, Dean didn’t stop, just kicked off his shoes and began tugging off the rest of his clothing, leaving them strewn across the floor of the room on his way to the shower. The first touch of cold water against his skin was the best kind of shock, and Dean braced his hands against the wall and breathed deeply as he let the water wash the dirt of the road from his body. As he showered he ran back over what Alex had told him on the phone. It hadn’t been much, admittedly: twelve missing people in three years – though four of those had come in the last month when a family of two parents and two children had disappeared – and local legends that talked about something called _bocas huecas_. Alex had found himself at a standstill, and so had called Dean to see if he knew of anything with that name, or anything else native to the region that might cause people to vanish without a trace. The offer – and it had been phrased like an offer, not a request – for Dean to come and help if he was interested had been dropped in at the end, so overly casual that it had made Dean grin into the phone, not bothering to even pretend to consider before saying yes. 

Dean had checked John’s journal after he’d hung up the phone, just in case, but wasn’t surprised when he wasn’t able to find anything in there by that name. John had only been to Mexico on a handful of cases, and even then, mostly sticking to the north-west part of the country – Dean would be heading far further south than he thought John had ever travelled. Despite its unhelpfulness in this case, Dean could admit that John’s journal had come in handy in quite a few hunts in the ten months since he’d walked into a cabin just outside of Red Oak to find no sign of his father other than the torn paper remnants of the research from a hunt and the journal, his father’s prize possession, sitting square in the middle of the kitchen table. A gift, and a message, both well received and understood by Dean. _Don’t look for me,_ it said. _Stop calling_. Dean had stared at the journal, fury and helplessness and fear burning in his chest and swore he would do exactly what John wanted, and fuck the old bastard anyways. He’d only lasted six weeks before he’d broken, drunk out of his mind and shouting into John’s voicemail. He couldn’t remember, the next morning, if he’d mentioned that Sam was missing or not, but either way John didn’t return his call. In the last few months, Dean had flipped wildly between confusion, sadness, fear, self-recrimination, before finally settling into a deep, simmering anger. He wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted his father to be by his side, to tell him that everything was going to be okay, this badly in his entire life, but John had apparently decided that he was done being Dean’s parent. Which was just fine with Dean, really. He didn’t need him to find Sam, didn’t need him to tear apart whatever had gotten its hands on his little brother. Didn’t need him to tell Dean that it wasn’t his fault, that Sam would be okay, wherever he was. 

Dean could do, would do, all of that just fine on his own. 

The sun had begun its downwards journey towards the horizon by the time Dean left the hotel in search of food and Alex, feeling much better after the short nap he’d taken, passed out face down on the bed. After checking out the town on google maps, he decided to leave the Impala at the hotel, instead striking out across town on foot. He wasn’t able to spot Alex’s truck at either of the town’s other motels though, and wandering up and down the streets didn’t yield any sign of the other hunter either. He thought about heading into the motels and asking if they knew if Alex was staying at either of them, but dismissed the thought almost immediately – that wasn’t the sort of information that could easily be talked out of someone, and he didn’t have any Mexican credentials in his stash that would encourage someone to disclose something they wouldn’t otherwise share. He walked out to the edge of the town instead, and then walked the perimeter. The whole thing took him just over an hour, and his sense of unease grew as the full scope of the town coalesced in his head, the inescapable reality of just how small and impossible to disappear into it was. He didn’t see anything that struck him as unusual though, and he briefly debated heading further out of town to begin checking out the surrounding desert. He decided against it in the end when he looked up at the sky and registered just how little daylight still lingered – even without monsters in the mix, there were plenty of stupid ways to get himself killed in the desert, in the dark. Sighing, Dean instead let his stomach guide him back towards the end of town closest to the river, to the bar he’d passed by on his earlier patrol. Pushing open the door of El Oasis, Dean glanced around. If the white exterior walls of the bar had been uninspiring, the interior was even worse, dusty and worn and unfamiliar and yet somehow exactly like every other dive bar he’d ever been inside as he travelled back and forth across the entire continent. It was perfect, and the patrons already there watched Dean with wary expressions on their faces as he relaxed and headed towards the bar. The bartender greeted him without really looking at him. Dean smiled at him anyways, and ordered a beer in easy, if accented, Spanish. He only had to wait a couple of minutes before the bartender was sliding Dean his beer across the bar. The man seemed equally indifferent when Dean asked to put an order back to the kitchen as well, disappearing into the back without so much as a second look at him. Dean had pulled out his phone by the time the man returned a final time with Dean’s dinner, a photo of Alex ready on the screen, zoomed in so that his own drunken face, his arm thrown around Alex’s shoulder, wasn’t in view. It was his favourite photo of the two of them, and looking at it made worry clench hot and tight in the pit of his stomach despite himself. 

_”Have you seen this man before?”_ Dean asked. _”He’s a friend of mine, he was supposed to meet me here but I haven’t been able to find him. His name is Alex Velázquez.”_ The bartender squinted at the phone before finally nodding, his face still the same disinterested blank mask that it had been ever since Dean had arrived. 

_”Yeah,”_ he said, _”I’ve seen him. Not since yesterday though. He got very drunk, left around 2 in the morning.”_ Dean nodded. 

_”Did he ask anything while he was here?”_ Dean asked. _”Maybe about local legends, anything like that?”_ The bartender’s eyes narrowed, and he looked Dean up and down as if finally deciding he was worth taking his measure. Dean had no idea what he was looking for, and just did his best to seem relaxed and nonthreatening. 

_”He did,”_ the man finally said. _”Wanted to know about bocas huecas.”_

 _”Bocas huecas?”_ Dean asked. The man shrugged. 

_”It’s a legend,”_ he said. _”There’s a place, in the desert north of here, that’s cursed. If you go there, the curse turns you into a bocas huecas.”_

 _”What are they?”_ Dean asked again. _”It’s –_ hollow mouths – _what does that mean?”_ He recognized the name, Alex giving him that much over the phone, but Alex hadn’t known anything more at the time. It seemed as though he’d managed to find out more in the day since he’d last spoken to Dean though. The man shrugged.

_”My abuela said that it makes you consumed with hunger but cursed with starvation.”_

_”Consumed with hunger, what does that mean?”_ Dean asked, latching onto the most ominous part of that statement, and the bartender grinned, leaning forward. 

_”You’ll try to eat,”_ he said, clearly relishing the reveal despite his earlier indifference. Dean raised an eyebrow at him. _”Friends, family, everyone and anyone,”_ the man continued, apparently not satisfied with Dean’s lackluster response. Dean widened his eyes, trying to look shocked, and the bartender nodded, leaned back away from Dean. 

_”Wait,”_ Dean said as the man moved to head back across the bar. _”How do you kill them?”_ The man frowned at him. 

_”They’re not real,”_ he said. _”It’s just an old story, I don’t know.”_ Dean swore inside his head, briefly wondering if this guy would maybe tell him where his abuela lived, or give Dean her phone number. 

_”Do you know where this cursed spot is?”_ he asked instead, and the man shrugged.

 _”North,”_ he said, _”There’s supposed to be an old stone marker or something but I don’t know anything more than that.”_ Dean nodded, thanked him with a smile. The bartender shot him another wary look before nodding in return. _”Enjoy your meal,”_ he said, finally walking away. Dean looked down at his food as his stomach once again reminded him of just how hungry he was. As he began to eat, he tried to think about what he should do next. Clearly Alex _had_ been here, which was good, but the fact that he wasn’t anywhere to be found, and still hadn’t called or texted Dean back wasn’t doing anything to dispel Dean’s growing sense of unease. Since it didn’t look like he was anywhere in town, it seemed safe to assume that he’d gotten bored of waiting for Dean and had headed out into the desert to see if he could locate the cursed spot the bartender had spoken about. Dean’s stomach twisted at the thought of what it meant, then, that he hadn’t come back, before he quickly shoved the thought down. The radio silence could just as easily be something as mundane as Alex’s phone getting dropped or him losing his charger as it might be something malicious. And just because he hadn’t spotted Alex’s truck in his walk around town didn’t mean it wasn’t here, maybe parked at someone’s house instead of one of the hotels, if Alex had picked up some local girl or sweet talked his way into crashing on someone’s couch. Alex had a voice like honey, sweet and rich, and Dean had watched him talk his way into and out of more things than he could count – everything from getting a concierge to rent them the penthouse suite at the price of a normal room to convincing a cop not to arrest him despite him being caught climbing over the fence around a construction site with a literal crossbow slung across his back. Hell, Dean knew from first hand experience just how convincing Alex could be when he turned his charms on you, so he couldn’t exactly act like he didn’t get it, why people would look into his dark brown eyes and agree to just about anything he asked. So there was no point in him borrowing trouble, not when there was still a host of reasonable explanations for why he might not have yet heard from or run into Alex in town. 

Despite his lecture to himself, Dean still went to sleep that night with a tight clench of nerves in the pit of his stomach, the foreboding feeling of something being wrong making sleep difficult to find. He woke up early too, blinking awake after far too little time spent asleep, the grey pre-dawn light just barely visible through the gap in the curtain, his eyes gritty and blurry with sleep. He rolled over with a groan, burying his head in a pillow, but after lying there for another hour he gave in to the reality that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep. Instead, he dragged himself out of bed. If he was going to be awake anyways, he could at least go get some food and head out into the desert before it got too hot out. Stretching with a groan, he picked up his phone, not realizing just how much he was hoping to see a message from Alex waiting for him until the disappointment of the blank screen – no texts, no missed calls – crashed over him. Swearing, he tossed his phone down before getting up, pulling on his standard uniform of jeans, heavy work boots, a shirt, and a plaid button-up on top of that. Gun in the waistband, knife in its sheath, Dean decided to walk over to the diner he’d gone past the day before, just past the old church, and see what they had in the way of breakfast. The air was still cool when he let himself out of the door, and he felt himself settling more and more into his skin as he walked, breathing deep and letting the silence and stillness of the early morning centre him, drag him into complete alertness despite his exhaustion. He nodded to the priest who was standing just outside of the church, waiting for his congregants to arrive. The man nodded back to him, watching Dean walk past with curious eyes. 

The diner was old and worn down, but obviously well loved, the table Dean was directed to decorated with a vase filled with a small handful of flowers, the chipped tile of the tabletop a perfect match for the faded paper menu he was handed. He couldn’t stop himself from letting out an appreciative moan when he was brought a cup of coffee, and he settled in to observe the town as he waited for his food. There were a lot of people now walking past on foot, probably headed to the church. When the waitress returned with his food, Dean tried to ask if she knew anything more than the bartender had about the bocas huecas, but she didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. Dean smiled, told her it was no problem, but she just frowned at him before walking away. The next time she came by with more coffee though she also had the cook with her, an old woman with sharp eyes and deep laugh lines surrounding her mouth, her gray hair hanging down her back in a long braid. Much like the bartender the previous night, she seemed wary of Dean’s questions, but brightened up significantly when he showed her the photo of Alex. Dean fought the urge to sigh as she launched into a recounting of what a nice young man he was, how sweet and polite and such a good listener too. No one ever talked about _him_ like that. Eventually though, the woman – María – revealed that Alex had also been to the diner, though he hadn’t been back since the day before, and he had asked her about the cursed spot in the desert. Dean straightened up at that, something that was not lost on the old woman. 

_”You’ll be wanting a map then, same as him?”_ she asked. 

_”You have a map to it?”_ Dean asked, and the woman shook her head before tapping her temple. Turning, she called the waitress back over, before sitting down in the chair across from Dean. She grabbed the waitress’ pad and paper when she got to the table, waving the other woman back off towards the one other customer in the diner without looking up. The younger woman rolled her eyes behind María’s back, but walked away without argument. 

_”I’ve never been there,”_ she said. _”No one has, not in my lifetime or my mother’s lifetime or my grandmother’s lifetime. Not since the conquistadores tore each other’s throats out.”_ Dean raised an eyebrow. Whatever this was, it was _old _.__

____

____

_”Do you know what it is?”_ he asked. _”The curse? Who put it there?”_ María shrugged. 

_”Maybe the Aztecs. Maybe someone, something older,”_ she said, then looked up and met Dean’s eyes with an intensity that made him lean back slightly on instinct. _”You should not go there,”_ she said. _”I will give you this–”_ she shook the piece of paper with the now complete map on it _”–but I will tell you the same thing I told the young man yesterday. You should not go there. There is nothing there but hunger, and starvation, and death.”_

_”Why even give me the map then?”_ Dean asked as he took the proffered piece of paper. María gave him a sharp look. 

_”I know your type,”_ she said, and Dean had no idea if she meant hunters or something else as she continued, _”I tell you where to go, I don’t tell you where to go, you go out into the desert anyways, you die anyways. Or maybe you break the curse, maybe you stop the disappearances.”_ She shrugged again, but didn’t say anything else, just nodded when Dean thanked her before standing. She paused, giving him one last considering look, before placing one hand heavily on her shoulder and closing her eyes, speaking under her breath and so quickly that Dean was barely able to catch what she said. _”Our Lady of Santa Muerte, my dear guardian, to whom the love of God commits me here, Mighty Lady of Shadows, cast your gaze upon this sinner and grant him your protection, for he faces evil men cannot understand. Amen.”_

_”Amen,”_ Dean echoed out of pure habit, still mentally trying to translate what she had said. She seemed pleased though, giving his shoulder a final pat before finally walking away, back to the kitchen. Dean watched her go, then turned back to the hand drawn map now in his possession, feeling a strange shiver pass through him at the realization of how closely he was retracing Alex’s steps, that Alex had probably been exactly where Dean was the day before, thinking the same things he was. Dean’s thumb worried at the edge of the map for a long moment before he finally pulled out his phone, comparing the map to the one on his phone, tapping where he thought it was so that he’d be able to use his GPS to find it after breakfast. He didn’t stay at the diner much longer, shoveling down the now mostly-cold remains of his huevos rancheros and a final cup of coffee. Standing, he waved his goodbye to the waitress before heading out into the rapidly warming morning. Retracing his steps back to the motel, he saw that his breakfast and his conversation with María had apparently outlasted mass, the congregation now spilling out of the church doors. He stopped on the sidewalk, not wanting to push through the crowd, instead just shoving his hands in his pockets and watching the flow of people from the doors, laughing and chatting freely in the sunlight. In the morning light it was even more obvious just how old the church was, how long it had stood there as the centre of the community, its shared heart. The light was bouncing off the stained glass in a way that made it difficult to make out anything more than just the riotous array of colours, sending prisms through the inside of the building and making it seem like there was just as much light coming from inside as from without. He found himself smiling without really thinking about it. _Sammy would have loved this_ , he thought, and it hurt less than it had the last time he’d thought it. 

His eyes were travelling over the crowd without purpose when his attention snagged, caught on one of the men who was walking amongst the crowd. The way he was moving was strange though, his motions juddery and stilted and starkly at odds with the comfortable and familiar flow of the rest of the congregation. Dean frowned, something about him registering as oddly familiar… and then he turned, and Dean’s eyes widened in surprise and recognition. 

Even from a distance, Alex looked terrible – his skin ashen and eyes bloodshot. His jeans and shirt were covered in what looked like it might have been dried mud, and Dean could see where sweat had soaked through the grey shirt he was wearing at his collar, his armpits, plastering his thick dark hair to the curve of his skull. Alex’s eyes passed over Dean. For a second, Dean thought that Alex had spotted him, but his head kept turning, and Dean realized that he hadn’t seen even a flicker of recognition pass through the other man’s eyes. Swearing under his breath, he began picking his way through the crowd to where Alex had now stilled, staying in one place despite being buffeted back and forth by the civilians, still shaking, shoulders hunching and limbs bending and unbending in abrupt shocks of movement. 

“Alex!” Dean called out when he was close enough that he could say it without having to shout. A couple of the people nearest him still turned to look at him curiously, but he didn’t care, was only really paying attention to the fact that Alex was turning, was finally looking at Dean. Closer, Dean could see even more clearly how terrible he looked, his mouth hanging open, jaw working slightly as if he was trying to close his mouth but just couldn’t quite get his body to cooperate. There was something dripping from him, clear liquid splattering against the ground beneath him in irregular drops. Alex met Dean’s eyes, and this time Dean could see the fear clearly written there. There was a breath, then two, and then Alex started to _scream_. 

It was a horrible sound, and the crowd around Alex flinched back on instinct before they began moving backwards with purpose, staring in fear at the man standing in the centre of the rapidly widening circle. He was still screaming, didn’t seem to be pausing for breath, and the noise was wet in a way that made Dean nauseous, wet like there was something torn in his throat, like there was blood frothing in his lungs. His jaw continued that same ticking motion, faster now. There were still a handful of people standing between Dean and him, and Dean began shoving at them harder, fighting to move forward as they fought to move back, struck with the sudden instinctive knowledge that something horrible was about to happen. 

When Alex lunged forward, it was with an abruptness that made it so much more obvious how quickly the ways in which his body was contorting itself were travelling away from what was natural, what was human. There was no tensing of the muscles, no preparing to move; just Alex, standing, and then Alex, moving, the motion twisting and jerking his limbs like he suddenly had far more joints than he’d had before. The congregants had continued to move away from him, but it was a dense crowd, and those at the outside edges, out of sight and with no idea what was happening, were less quick to move, getting in the way of those closest to the centre. They were still so near him, had nowhere to go. By the time Dean finally cleared the crowd and drew his gun, decades of training and experience overriding his shock and horror at seeing what had happened to Alex, Alex had already traversed the remaining distance between him and the crowd. He wasn’t quite fast enough though, was still raising the gun to aim it when Alex slammed into the nearest civilian, sending both him and the man to the ground as he ripped into the man’s throat with his open mouth, jaw finally closing with a sickening crunch, wet and tearing. 

“Alex!” Dean yelled without any hope, and was surprised when Ale– whatever had once been Alex raised his head, turning towards Dean with blood streaming from his mouth, small chunks of something Dean couldn’t identify mixing with the gore and tumbling to the ground. He wasn’t screaming anymore, but the crowd around them was more than making up for it, people now desperately shoving at each other to get away. Dean made a split second decision – didn’t wait for them to get any further away, didn’t wait to see what Alex would do next – just adjusted his stance slightly, shifted his aim, and squeezed the trigger. 

The small circle that appeared between the thing’s eyes didn’t bleed at first, and for a long, horrible moment Dean was certain that the consecrated silver had done nothing, wouldn’t even slow it down. A second passed, then two, Alex still on his knees above the dead civilian, the steadily growing pool of blood beneath both of them soaking his jeans, before he finally, _finally_ crumpled, toppling to the side. Dean kept his gun fixed on him as he moved forward, but when he got close he could see that it was dead, Alex’s sightless eyes fixed upwards, bloody and bulging, the hole from Dean’s bullet now leaking a small, sluggish stream of something black and far thicker than blood. Dean crouched down, gun still at the ready, and ran his eyes over Alex’s body. His clothes were muddy, covered in blood. Up close Dean could now see that what he had earlier mistaken for sweat was some other liquid, splattered over his shoulders as if it had been dumped over his head. His mouth was still hanging open, ruined jaw sagging wide, painful to look at. Something small and hard crunched under Dean’s boot as he shifted his weight, and he looked down at the ground to see the things that he’d watched drop from Alex’s mouth scattered across the road. Up close, he could finally see what they were, and his stomach rolled as he glanced from the teeth on the ground next to him back to Alex’s open, empty mouth. _They all fell out,_ Dean thought, and remembered what the bartender had told him. _Consumed with hunger, cursed with starvation_. He glanced over at the dead man whose legs Alex’s body was still partially crumpled over to see that a civilian had approached while he’d been busy inspecting Alex, a woman who was now kneeling in the pool of blood, headless of what it was doing to her dress. Her hands hovered nervously above the man as if she couldn’t decide whether she should touch or not, and she was crying, silent and soft but shaking with it all the same. 

“Hey,” Dean said, raising his free hand towards her. She turned to look at him, her face streaked with tears and full of sorrow. “You need to move back,” he said, then cursed when she just stared at him. _”You need to move back,”_ he repeated, putting more force behind the words this time. The woman opened her mouth, to argue with him probably, but before she could get a word out, two large, bloodstained hands rose up and took ahold of her shoulders, yanking her downwards. 

The woman barely had a chance to scream before the sound was lost to the noise of blood filling her airway as the dead man tore into her throat in turn. Dean swore again, louder, lunging forward and wrapping his arm around her stomach, yanking her backwards. The dead man tried to follow, but he was hampered by Alex’s body lying across his legs just as much as Dean was by the weight of the woman, hanging limply in his arms. He couldn’t tell if she was dead, couldn’t look down to check, forced to keep his eyes locked on the man now struggling to his feet. He moved in the same strange, jerky movements that Alex had; skittering and heavy all at once, a mess of limbs and joints and something just sideways of human. Dean managed to take two more steps backwards before the dead man began to follow after him. He tried to shift the woman without dropping her, but when he felt the way she lolled in his arms dropped her instead, raising his gun and shooting the man in the forehead. The scream that had been rolling through his body and out his throat, building as he’d moved upwards, cut off abruptly, and he stared forward for a long moment before crumpling back to the ground. Dean didn’t wait to watch him fall, was already turning towards the woman laying at his feet, gun turning, turning, just in time to watch her surge upwards, a scream building in her lungs, squeezing out of a ruined throat and sliding wetly through her open mouth. Dean was so close to her, he could see it, see the black root rot spreading through her mouth, climbing upwards from her teeth or maybe down into them and the bullet pierced her brain just as the first tooth fell, sliding backwards through blood and gore and deep down into whatever remained of her trachea. 

Sound returned to Dean slowly. First, the panting sound of his own breath, the pumping of blood through his ears, then the sound of crying, yelling, fear and confusion ricocheting back and forth and back and forth through the now distant circle of people who were standing and staring at him. Dean looked from the woman, to the man, to Alex, _fuck, Alex,_ and then back up to the crowd. There was blood splattered all over the front of his shirt, his jeans, and he knew all too well what he looked like in that moment. There weren’t any sirens though, no one pointing at him and shouting accusations and condemnations, so he tucked his gun away with slow, exhausted movements. He walked back to Alex, ignoring the crunch of teeth under heavy boots, and bent down, patting down the other man. He found Alex’s gun, which he kept in his hand as continued to search him, going through his pockets, but there was nothing else on him, nothing to say where he had come from, what he had been doing before he’d ended up in front of the church. Dean stood back up, peering over the heads of the increasingly restless crowd. His attention was caught, briefly, by a single man standing in the crowd, notable not only because of his pale white skin but also his calm expression. Unlike everyone else whose face Dean’s eyes had skimmed over, this man seemed utterly unphased by what had just happened, almost like he had expected to see this, the monsters or Dean or both. There was no real expression on his face, just blue eyes fixed on Dean with an intensity that made Dean want to step backwards with the force of it. He didn’t have time to react to the incongruity of the man before he abruptly turned, his tan trench coat disappearing into the crowd just as suddenly as he’d appeared. Dean blinked, wondering if he should go after him when his attention was drawn away by a group of men who were now standing together, gesturing towards him with some urgency. He needed to get moving before that turned into anything, he thought, pushing the question of the strange man to the back of his mind as he resumed scanning over the crowd’s heads. It only took a couple of second more before he spotted a familiar shape in the distance. He didn’t wait any longer, just began walking in that direction, and the people surrounding him parted without hesitation, half-heard whispers wrapping around him the entire way through until he finally broke free of the crowd, nothing between him and Alex’s truck, sitting on the side of the road halfway down the street, driver’s side door hanging open. 

It took less than a minute for Dean to close the distance between himself and the truck, and as he drew closer he realized it wasn’t so much parked as it was stopped; halfway on and halfway off of the sidewalk as if Alex hadn’t had the time, or ability, to park it properly. Dean walked around the front of the truck to look into the open door. The first thing to catch his attention were the keys, still hanging in the ignition, followed quickly by the empty glass bottle sitting on the driver’s seat, another one resting in the footwell of the passenger’s side. He picked up the one from the driver’s seat, tipping it until a single clear drop finally shook itself free to land on his finger. He licked it. _Water,_ he thought, then looked at the arrangement of bottles. _Holy water,_ he corrected. That was why Alex had come to the church, he realized, mind racing as he entered the familiar headspace that he always settled into on a hunt. Either the holy water had been having some effect, or Alex thought it would, that he would drive in from the desert with such desperation, that he would risk bringing the danger to the town itself. Dean glanced back at the street behind him, at the people still standing in nervous, confused clusters. The priest was standing on the steps, the only one staring down the street after him. Dean leaned into the truck just far enough to grab the keys before he shut the door, putting the keys in his pocket, and walking back over to the church. The priest straightened as he drew near, turning to look Dean in the eyes. 

_”I need holy water,”_ Dean said, not bothering with his usual preamble. The priest opened his mouth, as if to argue, or ask questions, before glancing back towards the street, towards the bodies still lying there. Dean didn’t bother looking, just kept his eyes on the priest, watched the other man think about what he’d just witnessed. When the priest turned back to Dean, his face was set in an expression of resolution, and he just nodded before gesturing Dean into the church. He helped Dean fill up four large water bottles with holy water, Dean tucking two under each arm before he headed back out of the church, the priest trailing after him. He stopped at the top of the stairs, unable to prevent himself, this time, from looking at the bodies lying on the road. The priest came up beside him, and Dean could see him staring at Dean out of the corner of his eye. _”I’ll come back,”_ he said abruptly, making the priest start. _”For him,”_ Dean clarified, _”the body, I’ll… but I need to take care of this first.”_ He didn’t say what _this_ was, and the priest didn’t ask, just nodded. 

_”I will take care of him until you return,”_ he offered, and Dean took in a deep breath, riding out the wave of grief that rolled through him. He had a job to do, he reminded himself, and let out the breath. 

_”I’m sorry,”_ Dean said, eyes turning helplessly towards the two other bodies lying on the road. _”That I couldn’t save them.”_ The look the priest gave him was more considering, though Dean still kept his own gaze fixed forward. 

_”God is with you,”_ the priest finally said, before glancing at the bottles of holy water in Dean’s arms. _”Whatever you seek, the Lord will be your guide, and He will watch over you.”_

_God didn’t do these people much good,_ Dean thought bitterly, but he didn’t say anything more, just nodded and turned and headed back to Alex’s truck. 

Dean knew he should go back to the motel, maybe, get his car, get more supplies than just the single clip he had on him, a knife and four bottles of holy water, but he felt weirdly numb in a way that made that thought feel much less urgent than it should have. It was easier to just stick the keys into the truck’s ignition, easier to turn them and hear the familiar rumble of the truck coming to life beneath his hands. He took a deep breath, glancing into the rearview mirror. For a second he thought he saw that same man again, with his tan trenchcoat and intense gaze, but when he whipped his head around to look over his shoulder, there was no one there. He turned back, noticing for the first time that his hands were shaking slightly. 

“Okay,” he said to himself. “Okay, okay, you’re okay. You’ve got this,” he said, pulling his phone out and setting up the GPS before shifting the truck into drive and pulling out onto the road, making a u-turn away from the church. “You’ve got this,” he said again as he turned north.

Dean should have used the time spent driving out to where the woman at the diner had marked on the map thinking about what he was going to do when he got there, what monsters might be awaiting him, what cursed object he might have to destroy, but all he could feel was that same strange numbness. His brain had gone static with it, like his thoughts were moving at half speed, pierced through with little jabs of white and grey noise. He didn’t know why really – it wasn’t like it was the first time he’d been on a hunt where another hunter had died, wasn’t even the first time he’d watched a friend die. Though he supposed it was the first time he’d been forced to be the one to do it, to shoot a friend and watch the life leak from their eyes. The first time, too, that it had been someone he’d… 

Anyways. 

It was different. 

As he began nearing where he thought was around the right area, Dean slowed the truck down, looking more carefully at the desert around him – moving slower, the tires were kicking up less dust behind him, making it easier to see, and he scanned the ground for any signs that Alex had been here earlier. He figured if he could spot where Alex had gone, that would be easier than trying to follow the sketched map sitting on the bench seat next to him, easier than looking for some unknown and undescribed marker. He’d left the road hours earlier, the corner that the road had spun through the landscape directly countering the route sketched out on the map. There had been a section of the fence removed right where the map and the road diverged through, large enough for Alex’s truck to pass through, so Dean figured he was on the right track. Alex had clearly torn back into town with an urgency that didn’t allow for attempts to cover his trail, and there had been a few other signs of that franticness that Dean had spotted over the past hour – a knocked-over barrel cactus, a cluster of maguey plants with clear tire tracks crushing them – that let him know he was still on the right track. The desert was dry enough that for the most part the tread of the truck didn’t leave any marks on it once the dust settled behind it though, and there were a few long stretches where Dean didn’t see anything, and had to just trust in the accuracy of the map still sitting on the seat next to him. 

When the GPS told him he’d arrived at his destination, Dean allowed the truck to drift to a slow, grinding halt, peering out at the landscape surrounding him. There was a rise to the east of him, a ragged outcropping of rocks marring the otherwise predominantly flat landscape, and to the west a countering dip, the ground slipping downwards and out of sight, rising back up far enough away that Dean could barely see that what continued on was just more desert. Climbing out of the cab, Dean landed on the ground with a puff of dust. He looked back and forth between the rocks and the valley, before looking ahead, towards where the straight flat stretch of desert he’d been driving across just continued ever onwards. There was nothing on the map, nothing that he could see on the ground, that would indicate which way he should go. Grabbing one of the bottles of holy water, Dean arbitrarily picked the outcropping, dust rising behind him as he cautiously approached. The desert was silent other than the fading tick of the truck’s engine cooling behind him, the cry of some bird in the far off distance, the sound of the wind and the crunch of the dirt beneath Dean’s boots. As he got closer, Dean noted with some surprise that in the shadows of the rocks there were more plants growing, not just the familiar cacti and maguey plants he’d become used to over the last couple of days, but ones that needed actual water to survive. He registered that thought at almost the same time as his nose picked up the smell of water, and he remembered that Alex’s jeans had been caked with mud. He swallowed, heart rate picking up in readiness. Shoving the bottle of water into his pocket, he drew his gun and continued forward even slower. 

Fully inside the shadow cast by the outcropping, Dean could see that what had looked, from his previous line of sight, like an unbroken wall was actually split, a path curving upwards and disappearing between the two rocks. Dean glanced around him, but there was nothing there, no signs or sigils or tracks, so he cautiously began to follow the path, gun held at the ready. He moved slowly, thinking absurdly of Indiana Jones as he scanned for any sort of trap, physical or magical. There was nothing, just the dirt of the path, the rough surfaces of the rocks boxing him in, rising far above him. Dean looked over his shoulder and began walking with his back against one of the rock walls, painfully aware of just how trapped he would be if anything came at him from both sides. Still, he continued forward, the smell of vegetation and water growing thicker as he moved deeper between the rocks, around that curve that had prevented him from seeing where the path would lead him. There was a final, abrupt corner in the path, and then Dean was surprised to find himself at the edge of an open, round clearing. His gun didn’t waver, though his brain struggled to process and categorize everything that now lay in front of him all at once. The first thing that registered was just how colourful it was, how vibrant, and then he registered just why that was, and his stomach lurched with nausea.

The long pillars of the rock outcropping formed a near perfect circle inside which Dean stood, the shadows making the space unexpectedly cool despite the midday sun hanging high above them in the sky. The space wasn’t large, but it was dense with plants, making it seem both smaller and larger than it actually was. There had to be a water source somewhere within the rocks, a spring or something like it, though Dean couldn’t immediately see it amongst the greenery. He could smell it though, and could see where the liquid had soaked through the dirt, turning the ground thick and muddy. There were clear footprints here, but Dean didn’t need footprints anymore to tell him that he’d found the right spot, not with the slab of white rock rising up out of the mud and plants. There was something about it that made Dean’s brain _itch_ , and he found himself taking two steps towards it before he caught himself, almost stumbling with how quickly he forced himself to stop moving. He retreated back even further than he’d walked forward, eyeing the rock warily. In any other context it might not have even been notable – no strange markings on its surface, no unusual smoothness to mark it as unnatural – but here, with the plants surrounding it, the scent of water thick in the air, its surface blindingly white even in the shadows, there was no mistaking it as anything even close to natural, about as far from being an ordinary harmless stone as Dean was. Even if it had somehow registered as normal, the other things inside the circle would make it clear that this space was the home and source of the curse, and Dean finally, reluctantly, forced his attention to the final things resting inside this shadowed space.

It was the clothing that drew the eye, the source of all the colour, as the blood had long since dried dark and brown. The bodies had clearly been out there for some time, though Dean would guess that the curse had done a decent amount to speed up the decaying process based on what it had done to the man and woman in town in such a short amount of time. The blood splatters on the rock had dried as well but were still clearly visible against the dusty grey, reaching high up the sides of the rocks encircling the clearing. As his eyes followed their path, he noted that there was none on the white rock, even though the path of the spatter meant that there should have been. Dean stepped forward again, but not towards the rock this time, diverting to the body nearest him. It was a little girl, no more than eight, and his stomach rolled as he crouched down next to the tiny body. He never knew if he should wish for numbness in moments like this or not, if it would be better if he felt nothing at the sight of small bodies or if that would just mean that something inside of him was broken beyond saving. He did know that it never got easier, as he cautiously reached out and rolled her over. She moved easily, and he wrinkled his nose as the smell of decay finally reached him. Pressed face down in the wet dirt, her face had gotten the worst of it, and Dean again had to breathe through the nausea, forcing himself to examine her mouth even as all his instincts told him that it was wrong, disrespectful, a violation that he had no right to. 

Like Alex, like the people in town, her mouth was an open wound, a mess of blood and rot, toothless and mushy with decay that had started long before death. He avoided looking at her eyes, instead scanning down her body. There was a wound on the arm that had been lying beneath her body, huge and tearing and Dean’s mind shied away from acknowledging what it was, what would have caused it. He knew, of course, knew what it meant for what had happened to this family, how this girl had died, what she had seen and felt before death had claimed her. Gently laying her back in the dirt, he went to check the other bodies. The boy was the one nearest to his sister, so Dean checked him first. He was older but still so fucking young, though he was lying face up, so at least Dean didn’t have to turn him over. A quick visual inspection confirmed his suspicions – the boy’s mouth had also turned into a hollow, hungry cavern, though the bite that had infected him had been taken out of his shoulder, his shirt torn and stiff with dried blood. The mother, crumpled against the base of the wall opposite, told a similar story, including the placement of the bite, though it looked like she had been more… chewed on, meat missing from her arm and chest as well as from the initial bite, the source of her infection. 

The father though, lying close enough to the stone that it made Dean nervous, made him move incredibly slowly as he made his way over towards him, was a different story. Alert to any sort of compulsion that might draw him in closer to the stone, Dean edged over to the father, unsurprised to see his jaw too hanging unnaturally wide, his face smeared with the blood of whichever member of his family he’d torn into first. Unlike the others though, there was no bite mark, nothing maring his skin at all, and Dean straightened, quickly backing away a couple of paces from the stone before scanning his eyes back over the gory tableau in front of him. _Alex didn’t have a bite mark either,_ Dean realized, eyes sliding to the rock as a shiver passed through him. The father must have activated the curse, then turned on his family, passing it to each of them in turn. He remembered, again, the description of the curse. _Consumed with hunger, cursed with starvation._ Alone, in the desert, no one else around to feed on, the entire family had turned, then starved, a single, horrifying decision leaving them all dead. Dean’s eyes moved back to the rock, considering. They hadn’t gone anywhere, hadn’t even tried to, as far as he could tell, and he wondered if that was how this curse had survived so long without notice, and with relatively few victims. The majority of the people who had had the misfortune to stumble upon it simply wasting away, far from the sight of anyone else, never able to pass on the curse. Except for Alex, and Dean swallowed against the knowledge that if Alex hadn’t come back to town no one else would have died, though the thought of Alex dying out here, alone and afraid, made his heart ache just as much as how it had happened. Still, it didn’t make sense, if the family was consumed so quickly that they didn’t even leave the stone circle they’d stumbled upon, how Alex had managed to stave off the transformation long enough to go back to town. Except, Dean corrected himself, for how Alex was a hunter, and knew far better than this family what was happening to him. Dean remembered the holy water, and cautiously put his gun away before pulling out the bottle. He splashed a little on the father, just to check, but wasn’t surprised when there was no reaction.

Taking a deep breath, Dean turned to the rock, taking a few steps further back. He had no idea what, if anything, this was going to do, but if Alex drinking holy water, dumping it over his head, had helped to slow the infection, there was a good chance that it would affect the source of the curse as well. Bracing himself for what might happen next, Dean sprayed the rock with the holy water. The reaction was instantaneous, steam rising from the rock as it made a horrible, high-pitched noise, somewhere between the screech of a hunting hawk and the sound of metal grinding against itself. Dean couldn’t help but flinch back, an involuntary, instinctive reaction. It continued as a single, unending noise, until finally, as Dean watched, the water finished evaporating off the rock, and the scream trailed off into nothing. Dean took a couple of cautious steps closer, trying to see if there had been any damage to the rock itself, but it didn’t look like there were any marks on the rock to show that anything had happened at all. He splashed some more water, and the rock reacted in the same way, again leaving no damage behind. Dean quickly retreated across the space, until he was standing next to where he’d entered the enclosed space. He stood there for a long moment, considering his options. The holy water was clearly having an effect, but there was no way for him to know if it was enough to break the curse on its own, or if there was something else he needed to do. There would also be no way for him to test if it was broken other than touching the rock himself, and he didn’t think that was something he was willing to do, ever. He bit his lip, then looked up at the rocks far above him. If he couldn’t destroy the rock itself…

Turning abruptly, Dean shoved the water bottle back in his pocket and drew his gun again, heading back out the path with far less caution than he’d originally travelled down it. The sunlight was overwhelming after the shade of the rocks, and he had to take a long moment to blink against it, eyes adjusting slowly to the blindingly bright light, before he could begin to walk back to the truck. He was halfway back when something crunched under the heel of his boot, and he glanced down to find that he’d split what looked like a human femur clean in half. Eyes widening, Dean scanned the ground around him, spotting what looked like a piece from a human skull a few meters away, the curve of an eye socket recognizable even from a distance. He didn’t see anything else, but he didn’t need to to understand what had happened to the other people who had disappeared, victims to the curse and its endless hunger. Without someone close by to tear into, they had set out into the desert, where they had died long before they could reach any other human, before they could spread the curse any further. Swearing under his breath, he kept walking to Alex’s truck, heading around the back to unlock the long metal trunk that was tucked against the back of the bed of the truck. Alex had kept his supplies about as neat as Dean did his own, and Dean only spent a second scanning the ones on top before he began digging through them. He wasn’t sure what supplies Alex had had, but he was hoping that somewhere amongst the ammunition and strange, spelled knives, there might be…

There. 

Dean let out a long, relieved breath as he carefully drew out the blocks of C-4 that had been packed at the bottom of the trunk. There was a detonator too, and he pocketed that before climbing back down from the truck bed. He found a backpack in the back seat of the truck, and filled it with the blocks of C-4 along with the rest of the holy water before heading back to the rocks. He didn’t waste any more time, just began setting up the explosives around the edge of the circle, avoiding only the stretch directly behind the rock, where the vegetation was thickest and he would have to get within a few feet of it to place the blocks. The itch to go to it rose up in his brain a couple times, but throwing holy water at it seemed to make the urge subside, and he managed to finish with only a few false starts towards his own doom. He hesitated once he finished though, and after a moment’s debate went back to the bodies, pulling them to the centre of the circle and arranging them in a row on their backs, eyes shut. It wasn’t enough but nothing ever could be, and it was the best he could do. He glanced around one final time before heading out of the rock circle. He had no idea what the range was on the detonator, no idea what the safe distance was for him to be, but he figured he’d start from behind the truck, and get closer only if he needed to. 

He sank to a crouch in the dirt by the truck, back pressed flat to one of the tires. He was sweating from the heat and from the effort of moving the bodies, and he took a few deep breaths before bracing himself and finally pushing the button. There was a moment when nothing happened, Dean already resigning himself to needing to leave the shelter of the truck behind to get closer to the rocks, when there was a sudden roar behind him, and the ground shook. The smell of burning filled the air as Dean pressed his back even tighter to the tire, breathing hard as he watched with wide eyes as tiny chunks of rock peppered the ground in front of him, pinging off the body of the truck. The sound of rock crashing and breaking apart was deafening, and continued long after the sounds of the explosion began to fade from Dean’s ears. Finally, it was silent, and he stood cautiously, turning and looking over the bed of the truck towards the rock outcropping. Triumph surged through him when he saw that it was now half as tall as it had been, some of the pillars having tumbled down and out, smashing across the desert, but the majority looking to have collapsed inwards. Dean picked up the backpack before walking back to the outcropping, moving more cautiously the closer he got, wary of rocks that might just be waiting for the slightest bit of motivation to fall further, eyes scanning for shards of white rock. He didn’t see any though, and when he arrived back at the curve that he had previously entered through, he found his way thoroughly blocked by shattered stone. He kept walking around the outside instead until he found where the remains of rock that had tumbled outwards had created a slope that was climbable, cautiously scaling upwards until he could see over the top of the entire outcropping. 

The sight that greeted him confirmed what he’d seen from a distance: that the top of the outcropping had completely collapsed, the majority of it falling inwards, and he was relieved to see that through the gaps in the stone, the white rock was not visible, nor were the bodies lying within their newly created tomb. He let out a long breath, carefully climbing around the outer ring of the rocks, confirming that it was sealed at every edge. Pulling out a bottle of holy water and a rosary, Dean walked the same path a second time, this time muttering a blessing in latin as he went, sprinkling holy water on the rocks beneath him, the beads of the rosary clicking through his other hand in time with the words. He did two more loops on top of the rock, going through the second and third bottles of holy water before he climbed down and did a final loop on ground level, circling the entire outcropping, a final confirmation that it was completely sealed. He didn’t know if the blessing would do anything, but it was the best he could do, and he really didn’t want to risk bringing the priest out there to perform his own rites. Dean spent a long minute just standing there, staring at the destroyed rocks, before he turned and made his way back to the truck, exhaustion suddenly tugging at his limbs, at his entire being. He didn’t wait to climb into the cab but just sat there for a long moment, staring sightlessly out into the desert. He wanted to scream, or cry, or maybe just keep driving straight out into the desert and never come back. His skin felt too tight suddenly, and his throat ached as he tried to keep his breathing deep and even, fighting against the restless buzzing rising up within him, adrenaline and sorrow a strangely potent mixture. Finally, he forced himself to raise his hand and put the keys back into the ignition, bringing the truck back to life. He turned the truck around, keeping his eyes firmly locked on the desert ahead of him and not letting them drift towards the rearview mirror as he pointed the truck back the way he’d come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much Helen for the beta!! 
> 
> And a huge shout out to Britt, my DM, from whom I shamelessly stole (with permission) this chapter's monsters from. Please excuse my artistic licenses.


	6. New Orleans, Louisiana, 2005

**New Orleans, Louisiana, 2005**

When Merihem found him, Sam was sitting tucked in the corner of a balcony, his side pressed against the railing, body curled up like it would do anything to make him appear smaller, like it would somehow allow him to hide in plain sight, disappear into the shadows. She didn’t say anything at first, but he still knew it was her standing behind him, had known it was her coming when she was still on the stairs half the floor away from where they were now. He shifted over, making room for her to sit next to him, and she did, threading her legs through the railing and kicking them out over the edge, letting them dangle in the empty air. She leaned back, palms pressed to the cold marble floor, stretched out and taking up as much space as possible. Sam shot her a look, but she just smiled back at him, overly-innocent. He turned back to the scene in front of him, and felt more than heard movement next to him as Merihem did the same. The silence between them settled, turned comfortable. From where they sat, high above the ballroom, the screams were barely audible, sinking beneath the sound of the orchestra playing something discordant and ancient. It could almost be peaceful, but the scent of blood and perfume was still heavy in the air, making it impossible for Sam to pretend, even for a minute, that he was anywhere other than where he was. 

“Is he looking for me?” Sam finally asked, not bothering to look at Merihem. He heard her shift next to him, knew she was looking at him now. 

“Not right now,” she said, “but he’s going to notice you’re gone sooner or later.” Sam nodded. He should go back. He was pushing it, he knew, especially after the previous week, and it wasn’t like hiding out like a scared child was going to change anything, was going to do anything other than just make what was already bad, worse.

“I just needed a minute,” he said, a weak excuse but the truth nonetheless, all he had to offer. “I just… it’s… I needed to _breathe_.” Merihem’s voice was soft when she replied. 

“I know,” she said. The sympathy in her voice hit Sam like a physical blow, making him suck in a ragged breath. He kept his gaze locked on the room below them though, avoiding whatever expression might be on her face. Sympathy from her was always unbearable, worse than pity, the confirmation that things were as bad as he felt they were almost more painful than the lies that he told himself: that he was being melodramatic, that he was just acting like the petulant teenager he had been, so long ago, yelling at his father for pulling him out of yet another school – overreacting and so fucking naive and innocent of how much worse things could be. It was a cold comfort, a delusion he was rarely able to sustain, but one that was often the only thing keeping him upright, keeping him moving. “If it makes you feel better, you probably would have gotten away with it,” she offered, “if he hadn’t decided to show up himself, I mean. You did a good job covering up your tracks. He wouldn’t have caught you.” The laughter that tore its way out of Sam’s throat was bitter, acid on his tongue as he stared out at the undulating sea of silk and jewels and bone in front of them. _Stupid,_ he thought as he blinked back the tears suddenly threatening at the corners of his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “Well. A lot of things would be different if he hadn’t caught me.” He didn’t know if he was talking about now or then, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Past, present, future: in all versions of reality, he had been caught, would be caught again. As he loved to tell Sam, over and over again, it was destiny, Sam’s fate to be caught, a preordained and inescapable doom. Sam glanced at Merihem, just in time to catch the face she made, somewhere between humour and sadness, and knew she was thinking of the same thing. Sam let his expression mirror hers as he turned back towards the ballroom, a dark and pained amusement at the absurdity of his attempts at defiance, the small, stupid part of him that still struggled against the inevitable. The silence that settled between them was comfortable, even if it was still choked with so many things left unsaid, empty platitudes begging to be released, stifled under the threat that the truth might accidentally slip loose among them. 

“How’s your arm?” she finally asked, looking back towards him. Sam uncurled slightly to shrug out of his heavy black jacket, the gold buttons clinking against the marble as he let it drop to the ground. The small diamond and onyx cuff link followed after, and Sam ignored the look Meriham gave him as she picked it up before it could roll off the edge of the balcony. He focused on carefully rolling up his sleeve instead, breath hitching in his chest as his fingers touched the skin, sending hot waves of pain rolling through his body. Meriham’s expression was inscrutable as inch after inch of raw red skin was revealed. It hadn’t been long enough for the burn to begin healing at all, and Sam had almost passed out from the pain when he’d bumped into someone in the crowd earlier, only staying upright through the weight of the eyes on his back and the knowledge of what the consequences would be if he gave into his body’s desperate pleas for the relief of unconsciousness. The burn spanned the length of his forearm, crawling further upwards on the outside until it stopped just above his elbow. The cords of his muscle were obvious where the skin had been eaten away, and the contrast between the white of the undamaged skin and the red of the open wound made his stomach twist every time he looked at it. Deep enough to scar but not deep enough to damage the muscle and affect his movements after it finally healed: a careful calculation that Sam was grateful for even as he hissed out an exhalation of pain, holding the limb out towards Merihem. She took his hand, her fingers cool against his overheated skin, turning it back and forth. She looked up at Sam, a question in her eyes, and he shook his head. 

“It’s fine,” he said, voice turning wry. “I’ve had worse.” She snorted, releasing his hand.

“Probably lucky he didn’t do worse this time,” she said as Sam carefully rolled the sleeve back down. She handed him the cufflink when he held out his hand, and watched as he finished putting himself back together. Neither of them commented on how hard he was shaking, bad enough that it took a few attempts before he was finally able to secure the cufflink. It was part of his punishment after all, and there wasn’t anything that either of them could do about it.

“Yeah,” he finally said, picking the conversation back up. “And like you said, I deserved it.” 

“Don’t think I said that,” she said mildly. 

“You said you understood why he did it,” Sam said. Merihem shook her head. 

“Sam,” she said, and Sam waved her off. 

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Not the same thing.” 

“It’s a bad precedent,” she said. “That’s all.” Sam’s lips twitched up in an empty smile.

“Well, I think I’ve learned my lesson now,” he said. 

“No you haven’t,” Merihem said, and Sam laughed. 

“No, probably not.” He hesitated, not speaking for a long moment. Merihem let the silence rest, waiting for him to go on. “She was just so small,” he finally said, voice soft. “Seeing her lying there like that… she was just so small, still just a baby really.” He stared out into space, the sight of the girl lying crumpled on the floor filling his mind, the screams of her parents still echoing in his head, their blood soaking his clothes, spreading across the floor. When he’d touched her, he’d left smears of blood behind, a physical reminder of the invisible stain of corruption that he left on everything he touched. The gasp of air sucked into shocked lungs was still loud in his mind, the look in her eyes when they’d fluttered open to see him kneeling over her, the hummingbird-fast beat of her heart remembering how to work. His touch might spread nothing but disease and death but she had walked out of that house with tears in her eyes and breath in her lungs and he couldn’t bring himself to regret that. He looked over at Merihem, met her eyes, and knew that she both did and didn’t understand. They shared a small smile, before Sam looked back out over the crowd. 

“It’ll get better,” she said finally, and Sam looked down at his hands, rubbing the tattoos on the back of each, feeling the ache of them that had been getting worse and worse lately, the ghost of the blood that had covered them so often. 

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispered. After a minute, he felt fingertips on his temple, and turned his head to meet Merhiem’s eyes as she brushed his hair back, tucking it behind his ear. Her expression was again unreadable as she stared at him before finally dropping her hand, climbing back to her feet. She held out a hand. Sam stared at it for a long second before sighing, taking a hold of it with his undamaged right arm and letting her pull him to his feet. 

“Once more unto the breach,” she said with a smile, and Sam laughed, the sound only a little bit bitter. 

“After you,” he said, and followed her back down into the pit below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter this week! When I started this fic, I didn't want it to end up being too long, so my goal for each chapter was actually for them to be about this length.... as you can tell, that's really going well for me.
> 
> Thank you to Helen for the beta!


	7. Broken Bow, Nebraska, 2006

**Highway 70, 6 miles west of Broken Bow, Nebraska, 2006**

It was just past four in the afternoon when Dean slowed the Impala, turn signal blinking at no one as he spun the wheel to take him off of the smooth pavement and onto the rough gravel of the short road that connected the highway to the parking lot. There were a handful of trucks and cars already there, though none that Dean recognized. He didn’t stop next to any of them, ignoring the front lot in favour of looping around the low wooden building, pulling in beside the cherry red pickup that was parked directly outside of the back door. Climbing out of the car, he squinted against the bright sunlight, stretching and hearing what sounded like every bone in his spine crack, before he finally locked the Impala’s door. He gave the truck an admiring look, circling the vehicle once before heading inside, swinging open the heavy industrial metal door and just barely managing to dodge Katerina, who swore as the stack of plates she was holding rattled against each other, threatening to fall. Dean grinned as he watched her regain her balance. 

“Hey baby,” he said when it became clear that she wasn’t going to drop anything after all, and her head snapped up. Her eyes narrowed as she finally looked at him properly, realizing who it was that had almost knocked her over.

“I told you not to call me that,” she said, her accent as heavy as it always was, weighing down each vowel like molasses, a perfect complement to the deep rasp of her voice. Dean leaned back against the door with a grin, watching as she finished her interrupted walk over to the sink, dumping all the dishes in the soapy water already filling the large metal basin. 

“Aw sweetheart, you wound me,” Dean said. 

“I fucking will wound you,” she said, pointing her finger at him as she walked back to the other side of the kitchen. Dean watched as she stalked past him towards Raoul, who was actively ignoring both of them, leaning against the counter and doing something on his phone. She pulled her notebook out of her pocket, quickly rattling off an order to the other man. Raoul didn’t even look up from his phone, but Katerina just kept staring at him until he finally heaved a long sigh and pushed himself off the counter, pocketing his phone and walking over to the fridge. 

“Ellen here?” Dean asked as Katerina pushed back past him towards the sink. 

“Da,” she said, pausing in front of the sink and looking back at him. Her eyes travelled up and down his body again, and Dean tried to hold himself loose and easy. The bruising on his face was bad enough, dark and vivid and covering half of his cheek and forehead, swelling one of his eyes almost completely shut. He didn’t need her to guess at all the injuries hidden under his clothes as well. She would definitely snitch on him to Ellen, and he couldn’t deal with her particular harsh brand of mother henning right now. “Raoul,” she said, raising her voice, and Dean turned in time to watch the cook slowly raise his head to look in their direction, face a mask of apathy and disinterest. “Make Dean a burger.” 

“Katerina–” Dean started, turning back around, but she cut him off with a commanding finger pointed at him. 

“Don’t,” she warned, glaring. Dean looked back at her for a beat longer, then raised his hands in defeat, smiling despite himself. 

“Fine,” he said. “Have I mentioned recently how much I love you?” 

“Piss off,” she said, turning away from him to stick her hands into the water.

“No seriously. When are you gonna finally leave this dump behind to run away with me?” 

“Go bother someone else,” Katerina said, but Dean could see the smile threatening on her face. Still, he pushed himself up and away from the door, gesturing between the two of them as he walked across the room. 

“You, me, Vegas,” he said. “Just saying. I’m ready whenever you are, baby.”

“Idi v’banyu,” Katerina said, swatting at him when he ducked in, lighting-fast, to press a kiss to her cheek. The smile that she’d been fighting before finally broke through though, and Dean was still laughing when he pushed open the kitchen doors. 

The room on the other side was dim and just as sparsely populated as the parking lot had hinted at, only a handful of people scattered around the room, a single lethargic game of pool in progress. The smell of cigarettes and cheap beer washed over him. He took a deep breath, the last of the tension leaching from his body. It could be any other bar he’d ever haunted across the country, but for the sharpness of salt and gun oil undercutting it all that let him know that he was among his people, something wary and alert deep inside him finally relaxing at the familiar smell and the sense of safety it carried. He finished his visual sweep of the room at the bar, where he wasn’t surprised to find Ellen already looking back at him. It had only been a couple of months since he’d last seen her, and she hadn’t changed at all, right down to the unimpressed look she was giving him that he could feel all the way across the room. He sighed, braced himself, then walked across the room, the worn and stained wooden boards creaking under his feet. 

“Y’know, I’m running a business here, Winchester,” she said as soon as he was close enough to hear her without her having to yell. “I don’t need you coming in the back door and harassing my staff. None of the rest of these assholes try to pull that shit,” she nodded towards the rest of the room as Dean slid onto one of the barstools. 

“Yeah,” he said, smiling at her, “but none of the rest of them are your favourite.” She rolled her eyes at that, but went to grab him a beer anyways. 

“You sticking around or just passing through?” she asked as she handed it to him. Her eyes narrowed as she examined the bruising on his face. 

“Just passing through,” Dean said, taking a long swallow from the bottle, the cold drink more than welcome after the late-afternoon heat. “Got a line on a hunt in Detroit. Figured I’d swing by though, catch up on all the latest gossip.” Ellen rolled her eyes again, leaned on the bar. She considered him for a long moment before sighing and shaking her head, and Dean felt the hope that he hadn’t even acknowledged he’d felt, had been trying so hard _not_ to feel, die. 

“Sorry Dean,” she said, verbalizing what he already knew. “Nothing on your brother, or your daddy.” She nodded towards the larger room. “Most of this lot just got here in the last hour or so though, haven’t had the chance to talk to most of them. They might have heard something. Since you’re staying the night, you’ll have lots of time to talk to all of them, and anyone else who might come in tonight.” 

“Ellen–” Dean started, but she cut him off with a glare uncomfortably similar to the one that Katerina had given him earlier. Dean sighed, but didn’t protest any further, just took another drink of his beer. He supposed there were worse things than a forced night on the small cot Ellen kept in the storeroom, especially when leveraged against his previous plans of sleeping in the car. His sigh of defeat made a small smile curve Ellen’s mouth as she ran her cloth over the top of the counter, the wet cloth not seeming to do much other than move the moisture on the bartop around. “Jo around?” he finally asked, glancing around the room. Ellen’s face shuttered, and Dean immediately wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. 

“No,” she said shortly. Dean worried at the edge of the label on his bottle with his thumbnail. 

“She still hunting?” he finally asked, looking back up in time to see a sour expression cross Ellen’s face. 

“Yes,” she said, and Dean looked back away, not sure what to say. He understood why Ellen didn’t want Jo hunting just as much as he understood why Jo wanted to be hunting. He still felt slightly guilty for bringing her along on that first hunt, over a year ago now, even though he maintained that it wasn’t his fault that she’d followed him from the Roadhouse and refused to let him call her mom. Not that he’d tried that argument with Ellen, ever. 

A plate hit the bar next to him, making him jump, and he turned to see Katerina ignoring Ellen’s knowing look as she pushed it in front of him. 

“Eat,” she said, avoiding Dean’s eyes. She didn’t wait for Dean to respond, leaving just as quickly as she’d arrived. Dean watched her retreating back for a second, before turning back to glance down at the burger and fries now sitting in front of him, then back up to see Ellen smirking at him. He looked down, fighting the urge to fidget.

“Shut up,” he said, voice rough as he picked up a handful of fries. Ellen raised her hands. 

“I didn’t say anything,” she said, but leaned in and whispered, “but maybe I won’t bother to make up the cot after all.” Dean glared at her, but she just laughed at him. Straightening, she headed away to where a man was now standing nervously at the other end of the bar. Dean watched as Ellen spoke to him, taking in the way the man was standing, his eyes skittering over the room around him every few seconds. _Civilian,_ Dean thought, eyes flicking from him over to the woman sitting anxiously at one of the tables, her eyes fixed on the man’s back. _Boyfriend or husband,_ he thought, then continued looking around the room. There were eleven people there, eight of them hunters. He was surprised to realize that there was one that he knew after all, Fatima looking back at him with the same expression of surprise, and he exchanged a quick nod of acknowledgement with her. _Must have gotten a new car,_ he thought, finishing his inspection of the room. Turning back to his food, he heard his stomach growl embarrassingly loud. He almost groaned as he bit into his burger. _Fuck,_ but Raoul made a good burger. 

Dean had intended to finish his food before making his rounds of the room, but it turned out he didn’t get the chance, a heavy body settling into the stool next to his after only a few minutes. Dean turned to look at the stranger now sitting next to him. The man didn’t seem at all put off by either Dean’s glare or the way his cheeks were puffed out with half-chewed food, just offered his hand.

“Rick,” he said, and Dean stared at the hand for a long second before he turned his eyes back to his burger.

“D’n,” he offered, word coming out garbled around the bite still in his mouth. 

“Winchester, right?” the man asked, still unphased. Dean nodded, watching out of the corner of his eye as the man regarded him. 

“Worked a job with your dad a few years back,” he said as Dean swallowed. “Hell of a hunter.” Rick paused for a second. “Kinda scary though.” A guilty look passed over his face, as if he’d only just realized that maybe wasn’t the right thing to say to the man’s son. “Sorry,” he added. Dean shrugged, not really sure what to say in response. He might not have seen or heard from his father in well over a year, but it wasn’t like that was an inaccurate assessment of John Winchester, or one that Dean hadn’t heard before from other hunters. Rick stared at him for a long, silent moment, but when Dean didn’t react, he kept going. “I heard he was working a job up in Alaska a couple months ago,” he said, “some sorta sea monster or something.” 

Dean felt a chill like ice wash through his veins, his heart immediately pounding in his ears. He took a slow breath in through his nose, fighting the urge to react to that, to turn and grab the man and shake him until he told him where John was. Fighting to keep calm, to not reveal to this stranger that he didn’t know where his own father was. 

“Who’d you hear that from?” he said instead, taking a slow drink of his beer in an attempt to stop his hands from shaking. 

“Val something,” Rick said with a shrug. “Don’t recall her last name.” He squinted into the distance for a moment before finally shaking his head in defeat. “Sorry.” He looked at Dean, expression expectant, and Dean cleared his throat. 

“He told me he was in Alaska,” Dean lied, “but if you’re looking for details about the hunt, I didn’t get any.” 

“Oh,” Rick said. He looked disappointed, confirming Dean’s guess about why he’d come over and asked Dean about John. 

“Sorry,” Dean said, and Rick shook his head. 

“No worries,” he said. “I’ll hear it from someone else, some other time maybe. Just thought it sounded cool.” Dean snorted, shaking his head and hoping the noise wasn’t as bitter as he felt. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Cool.” 

“Okay, well,” Rick said, running his hand through his hair, finally looking uncomfortable, as if only now registering that he’d interrupted Dean’s dinner. “I’ll leave you to your food.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Dean said, belatedly reminding himself that he should probably be at least polite to the other hunter. You never knew who you might run into on a hunt, or who you might need to call in for backup. Rick nodded, standing and knocking his knuckles against the bartop. 

“I’ll be here all night if you want to have a drink later,” he said, nodding over to the tables and smiling. “I’m sure we’ve both got plenty of stories to tell, even if they don’t involve sea monsters.” Dean managed a small smile as he tipped his beer in acknowledgement. 

When Rick finally walked away, Dean was left to stare at the wall of glass bottles in front of him, burger forgotten. He couldn’t decide if he felt relieved or angry at the confirmation that his dad was at least still alive, still out there hunting somewhere. Both, probably, though every time he heard someone mention having run into John the scales tipped more and more in favour of straightforward, uncomplicated anger. It had only happened a handful of times since his father had disappeared with his cryptic, unspoken message to Dean to not look for him. Just stories, usually secondhand, hunters who’d run into him on a job, vague compliments about what a great hunter John was, sometimes comments about how proud Dean must be to have a dad like him. Dean snorted, shaking himself out of his head and picking up his burger again, taking a bite. Proud wasn’t the word for it, but it wasn’t something he could disagree with without showing his hand, so he just nodded and accepted it for the compliment it was meant as. Ellen, Bobby, and Pastor Jim were the only ones that knew that Dean didn’t know where John was, hadn’t heard from him since before he’d gone to Palo Alto. He was probably being paranoid, not saying anything about it to any other hunters, but the sick nervousness that ran through him at the thought of others knowing, of it becoming common knowledge, always managed to keep his mouth shut. If nothing else, he didn’t want anyone’s pity.

Dean stuck to the bar long after Katerina came and took his plate away with a hand pressed against his lower back that made him smile, and a smack to the back of his head that made him smile even wider. Ellen left him alone, focusing on her other patrons and leaving Dean to his thoughts, not commenting on the way he watched people come and go from the safety of the bar, the nice civilian couple leaving rather quickly after a group of three hunters fresh off a kill came in, reeking of blood and sweat and victory. Once evening hit the bar got louder and louder as more and more hunters came stumbling in the front doors. Dean waited until most of the people in the bar were at least two drinks in before finally pushing off his stool to join the crowd. He grabbed a second beer from Ellen as he went, winking in response to the knowing look she shot him. After a quick glance around the room, he headed to one of the more crowded tables. The hunters gathered there greeted him enthusiastically, pulling up a chair and inviting him in. He didn’t know any of them personally, though a few of them he’d heard of before, and it made it a lot easier for him to just sit there silently, listening as they traded stories and rumours: gossip about fellow hunters, tips about monsters, recounts of hunts that were almost certainly greatly exaggerated. Most of it was fairly run of the mill, and Dean was just beginning to debate moving on to another table when something one of the men said caught his attention, a story being told only to the far half of the table. 

“Sorry,” Dean said, breaking in and directing the attention of the group towards him in a way that made him shift slightly in his seat. Still, he had to know, so he continued. “Can you repeat that?” he asked. The hunter who’d been speaking didn’t seem at all phased by the interruption though, just shrugged and went back to the start of his story, the entire table now listening. 

“Sure,” he said. “I was just saying that me and Bert was down in Mississippi last month, chasing signs of a werewolf. We get down there though, and find the town all in a flurry because one of the local kids had showed up in the woods with a silver bullet in his brainpan.”

“So another hunter beat you there,” one of the other hunters said. The hunter shook his head. 

“Nah,” he said. “I mean, maybe, but when we asked around, trying to figure out who it might have been, we ended up finding this girl, the kid’s girlfriend, who was actin’ real spooked. Took a minute but she finally admitted that she saw the whole thing. Said she was out in the woods with her boyfriend when this guy shows up outta nowhere, huge dude with all these crazy scars, and all of a sudden her boyfriend’s growing fangs and claws. Boyfriend makes a lunge for her but…” the hunter paused, looking around the table to make sure everyone was listening to him, obviously savouring the captive audience, now that Dean had called attention to his story specifically, “...before he can grab her, boyfriend goes flying across the clearing.” The table shifts, clearly not expecting that. 

“What like the hunter tackled him or something?” one of the other hunters asked, but it was clear that she already knew that wasn’t what he was getting at. Sure enough, the hunter shook his head. 

“Nope,” he said, popping the p with a grin, “girl said that nothing touched him at all, just some invisible force sending him flying. Pinned him against a tree too, then the guy pulls his gun, and that’s the end of that.” 

“Jesus,” one of the others said. “So what, there’s some sort of monster out there that’s decided to hunt too?” The hunter shrugged. 

“Dunno,” he said. “I asked, but the girl said there wasn’t anything about him that made her think he wasn’t human. Apparently just told her his name was Sam, walked her back to town afterwards.” 

“No other description of him?” Dean asked, fighting to keep his voice disinterested, like he didn’t really care either way about the answer. Beneath his ribs though, his heart had jumped. Swallowing, he forcibly reminded himself that Sam was an incredibly common name, that plenty of hunters were really tall. _Sam also doesn’t have psychic powers or whatever the fuck is going on there._ Dean thought to himself, ignoring the part of his mind that wanted to add a qualifier that he _hadn’t_ had them. The other hunter thought for a long moment before finally shrugging. 

“I think she said he had long brown hair,” he said finally. “I asked for her to be more specific about the scars but she was too freaked out to remember any details.” Dean leaned back in his chair, heart still racing despite himself. It was a stretch on multiple levels, but there was something about the story that was tugging at every instinct he had. 

“Y’know I actually heard about something similar,” another hunter jumped in. The table turned its attention to her, but unlike the other hunter, she shrunk slightly under the increased scrutiny. She cleared her throat, glancing around before speaking. “Not me, but my friend, she was chasing a hunt in northern Alberta. Shows up to find the monster already dead, with a couple of the locals crediting it to this giant scarred dude. They said that there was a woman with him though, and one of them claimed he’d seen her eyes turn black.” 

“So what, it’s _demons_ that are hunting monsters now?” one of the hunters asked, voice disbelieving. The woman shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. 

“She couldn’t find anything either way,” she said. “Just what that one guy said. She said she figured he’d just been so freaked out by seeing the monster killed, he was seeing them everywhere.” There was a moment while the table considered that possibility. 

“S’weird,” one of them observed, taking a swig of his beer, and there was a murmur of agreement across the table. There was a long moment of silence. When it was broken, it was by someone with a story about a demon he’d run into in Germany years ago, old gossip about monsters and victims long dead. He gave it a minute before he tuned out of the conversation, mind racing. It wasn’t anything, not really, but his gut was telling him otherwise, the same hunter instincts that had saved his life so many times telling him that this was _Sam,_ his Sam. Vague, unsubstantiated, more rumor than fact but also the closest thing he’d gotten to a lead, ever, and it was all he could do to stop himself from shoving out of his chair, striding out into the night to do… something. Anything. Go to Canada or Mississippi or straight to Hell. _Sammy,_ his heartbeat pounded, and he took a long drink of his beer, trying to calm himself down. 

Dean hung around for a couple more minutes before he finally excused himself. He’d been planning on making another circuit of the room, talking to some other groups of hunters that had gathered together over the course of the evening, but the rush of adrenaline that had shot through Dean listening to the stories of maybe-Sam was dissipating as quickly as it had arrived, leaving little in his limbs but the ache of his injuries. Katerina would be off her shift soon anyways, he thought, glancing over at the bar where Ellen was alone behind the counter, laughing at something the woman buying a drink had said. He headed towards the bar, dodging around groups of laughing and talking people as he went. The customer had left Ellen alone by the time he got there, and she nodded towards Dean in greeting. 

“Another one?” she asked, and he shook his head. 

“Nah, I think I’m done for the night.” Ellen looked surprised, and he didn’t blame her. He’d spent more than one night in the Roadhouse getting so drunk he couldn’t stand, and with the promise of the use of the cot in the back, that was normally exactly what he’d have done tonight. But the other hunters' stories had put him on edge, set something humming under his skin, making him want to run, to get into his baby and gun it down the highway, burning rubber to the sound of Bon Scott telling him exactly where he was going. Drinking wouldn’t help with that particular urge, and at this point it was too late, he was too tired, to run the way his body was telling him to.

“Alright,” Ellen said slowly, giving him a slightly worried look. “Should I grab the sheets and stuff for the cot?” Dean looked towards the kitchen. 

“Katerina’s off soon, yeah?” he asked, and heard a snort from behind him, though by the time he turned around Ellen’s face had been schooled into a carefully neutral expression.

“Yeah she is,” Ellen said, before leaning in, a serious expression crossing her face. “Are you doing okay Dean?” Her eyes flicked back to the bruises covering his face. Dean gave her his best grin. 

“Of course I am, Ellen. You know me.” Ellen made a face that let him know just how well she _did_ know him, and how much she saw through his bullshit, but didn’t lose the look of concern hovering at the edges of her expression. 

“Yeah, I do know you,” she said. Dean shifted uncomfortably on his feet. 

“Ellen,” he said, then stopped, not sure what else to say.

“Listen, Dean–” she started, before cutting herself off, eyes flicking to just over Dean’s shoulder. A second later he felt a hand on his elbow, and turned to find Katerina standing next to him, looking at Ellen with a confused expression. She was wearing a hoodie over her work uniform, hair let down from the ponytail it had been in the last time Dean had seen her.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Ellen shook her head. 

“No, you’re all good. Dean…” Ellen trailed off, clearly changing her mind about what she was about to say. “Be careful,” she finally finished, and Dean nodded, rapping his fingers against the bar top and making a face when they came away sticky. 

“Always am,” he said, and if the smile Ellen gave him was a bit too small, a bit too disbelieving, he pretended not to notice, turning to look down at Katerina instead. 

“So…” he drawled, and she rolled her eyes at him. 

“Come on,” she said, leading him back through the bar. 

The farmhouse hadn’t changed much since the last time Dean had been there, the chipped white clapboards almost glowing in the dark as Dean pulled in next to the truck that he’d followed there through the night. They both knew what it meant when Dean said that he’d follow her home in his car rather than driving over together, but Katerina hadn’t said anything about it. That was one of Dean’s favourite things about her really. She’d snitch on him to Ellen sure, but she also understood him, didn’t care if he slipped out before the sun even rose without saying anything, wasn’t bothered by the fact that he couldn’t sleep without a gun within reach. 

The wooden steps creaked underneath their feet, and Katerina didn’t bother to turn on the lights as she led Dean into the kitchen and pulled two beers out of the fridge. They drank them in a silence that was somewhere between awkwardness and anticipation, Dean avoiding her eyes in favour of looking around at the familiar faded floral curtains hanging above the sink, the scarred wood table, the single cup and plate sitting in the sink. Katerina had a story, written somewhere between her heavy accent and this house full of furniture that had clearly belonged to someone else. Everyone did, those who got into the life or even just next to it like Katerina was, but Dean had never asked and Katerina had never told him. Their friendship had always existed more in silence than in words, neither of them wanting anything more from the other than what they could give. 

Now that he was here though, it was impossible to avoid the reality that Katerina was going to see him with his shirt off, see the mess of bruises and clumsy stitches that covered his waist, done with one eye swollen shut and dizzy with blood loss. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before, and it was a hundred times better for her to see it than it would have been if he’d picked up a civilian, having to make up a story that would explain the injuries in a way that wouldn’t freak them out. It also meant that she would know what it represented though, the wounds saying more about the decisions he’d been making, the kind of hunts he’d been going on, than his words ever would. It meant that she would worry, and probably tell Ellen, and Ellen would tell Bobby, and all of them would keep worrying about him without ever saying it to him, just keep giving him those _looks_ every time they saw him. He suddenly wished he had just slept in his car after all, that he wasn’t here, wasn’t anywhere. The urge to run hadn’t abated since the bar, but it was wrapped in an exhaustion that went far beyond the physical. He was just so fucking tired, and he leaned back against the counter, closing his eyes against the sight of Katerina observing him in the dim moonlight. He flinched when he felt her hands come to rest on his waist, the touch gentle but still shocking, and he opened his eyes to find her staring up at him, a worried expression on her face. 

“The bed is made up in the spare room,” she said. “Or we can just sleep. We don’t have to… you’re hurt, and I don’t…” she trailed off when Dean smiled down at her, small but genuine. He leaned down, pressing a soft kiss against her lips. 

“I’m good, darling,” he said as he pulled away. Her expression didn’t change, that same worry still hovering in her eyes. 

“Dean,” she said, warning and question both. He shook his head. Everything else aside, he wanted, and so did she, and it might not solve the itch under his skin but it wouldn’t hurt it either. 

“I’m good,” he repeated, and something in his voice or his expression must have been enough, because the worry finally drained from Katerina’s face, replaced with an expression that was just as familiar, but far more welcome. She dropped her hands from his waist in favour of taking hold of one of his hands and tugging, and Dean abandoned his half-drunk beer on the counter in favour of following her upstairs. Her bedroom was all shadows and lace and pale blue wallpaper, and Katerina led him backwards to the bed with a smile on her face. She tasted like cigarettes and beer and let out the smallest, sweetest little noise when Dean pulled off her bra and ran his thumb over one of her nipples. There was a moment, when he finally let her tug off his shirt, where he thought she might put a stop to the whole thing, her eyes wide in shock and upset as she took in the wreck of his side. When she looked up at him, he shook his head, stepping away to pull her to the edge of the bed before going to his knees, and with the heat of her smooth skin pressing against the side of his head and the taste of her heavy on his tongue, he made sure she stopped thinking about his injury entirely. And when she pulled him back onto the bed, pushing him onto his back and climbing on top of him, he finally stopped thinking too. 

_He was standing in a field._

_It was freezing cold, his breath forming small clouds in front of his face, but he was dressed only in a shirt and jeans. The gun in his hand was a familiar and comforting weight, as were the boots on his feet, the knife at his waist. He didn’t know where he was though, the landscape unfamiliar as he scanned over the high grass, brittle and white with frost. The sky was invisible through the clouds that hung low above him, a complement to the sparse fog drifting through the field. There was a sound, a rustling noise like something large pushing through grass, and Dean spun, raising his gun. There was nothing there. Then he blinked, and then there was Sam. Dean sucked in a sudden, harsh breath._

_He didn’t look anything like he had the last time Dean had seen him, standing at a bus stop and scared out of his mind, the bitterness of that final fight still sharp on his tongue. This Sam was wider and stronger, limbs corded with the kind of muscle that he hadn’t had a hope of developing when he was eighteen. The backs of his hands were marked with ink, twin crosses standing out, black and vivid against his pale skin. His bare arms were covered in the kind of scars that inspired a sympathetic ghost of pain in the observer, making Dean shiver as he raised his eyes back up to his brother’s face, meeting his gaze with his own. They were the same eyes he’d always known, brown and warm as he stared back at Dean, surprise clear on his features._

_“Sammy?” Dean asked, his voice coming out strangely muffled, like the fog that was weighing heavily in the air was conspiring to steal the sounds straight from his mouth. Sam’s eyes widened, before he suddenly shut them, shaking his head, face scrunched up in pain. When he opened them again, they were demon black, and Dean took a shocked step backwards. “Sammy?” he repeated, quieter, voice shaking with fear despite himself. Sam opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a strangled gurgle. Blood began to run over his tongue and out of his mouth, turning his chin slick and red, dripping down to soak the ground below him. His face twisted into an expression of fear and pain, still recognizable despite the unfamiliar darkness of his eyes. “Sammy!” Dean shouted, forgetting everything in favour of running towards his brother. Sam stretched out a hand towards him, speaking something garbled and indecipherable around the blood filling his mouth. Dean let his gun fall to his side as he ran, Sam’s expression desperate and helpless as he kept his hand extended towards Dean through the grey fog. Dean mirrored the gesture without thinking, his free hand desperately reaching for his brother as he ran towards him. For just a second Dean felt the calloused press of Sam’s fingers against his as he finally reached him, the heat of his brother a sharp contrast to the cool air surrounding them, and then Sam was gone, blinking out of existence as if he’d never been there at all. Dean stared at where his brother had stood seconds before, the red of the blood that had spilled from him shocking against the frost covering the ground and the only sign that anyone else had ever been there. Dean sucked in a ragged, shocked breath, before he forced himself back into motion, raising his gun and turning in a slow circle, scanning the field. There was nothing there. No Sam, no nothing. When Dean finally turned back to where Sam had been, the blood was gone too, nothing to show that Sam had ever been there at all. Dean stared at the ground, heart still pounding with the shock of seeing his brother, the adrenaline rush of fear and hope and disappointment as it all was taken away from him, again._

_“He’s not yours anymore you know,” a voice said, and when Dean raised his head he somehow wasn’t surprised to see a man standing a few meters in front of him, hands shoved in his pockets as he regarded Dean, face open and curious. He was wearing a dark brown canvas coat over a dark grey work shirt, blue jeans and black boots. His hair was greying, and his face had the kind of lines that suggested a lifetime of laughter. Still, Dean felt a whisper of fear rush through him as he met the man’s eyes, and he knew that whoever he was, he was evil with a purity that Dean had never encountered._

_“What?” Dean said, not pointing his gun at him quite yet, but keeping it at the ready in front of him._

_“He’s not yours anymore,” the man repeated, voice casual, as if they were continuing a conversation they’d already been in the middle of. “Sam, I mean,” he continued. “He’s mine now.”_

_“No,” Dean said before he even really processed what the man had said, the denial instinctive and bone-deep. “No, he’s not. He’s my brother.” The man shrugged._

_“He was,” he said, and then smiled, an expression that sent a chill running down Dean’s spine. Too wide, too many teeth. “You have no idea, do you Dean?”_

_“About what?” Dean demanded, trying his best not to seem as unsettled as he felt. As scared. The man sighed._

_“I’m afraid I’ve gone a bit off script,” he said. “You know how it goes.” Dean didn’t know what expression he made, but whatever it was it made the man smile impossibly wider. “Don’t worry, Dean,” he said. “It’ll all still end the same. Fire and blood and brimstone and so, so much death.” He took a deep breath in, letting it out with a satisfied smile, and a vision flashed through Dean’s mind: a world on fire, endless screams and death, broken bodies across a broken landscape and at the centre of it all the shadowed outline of a man, his golden crown the only light in the darkness as he watched over his kingdom of blood and bone._

_“I don’t know who you are,” Dean finally choked out around the bile and fear filling his throat, breath uneven and desperate like he’d been running, like he’d been fighting. “But you’re going to give me my brother back.” He raised his gun, pointing it towards the man, who now just looked bored._

_“Mmmm, no, I don’t think so,” he said, taking one of his hands from his pocket, gesturing towards Dean. Dean braced himself for the force of a psychic attack, but nothing happened. “You see Dean,” the man said. Dean felt the air shift behind him, a freezing wind blowing over his neck, making him shiver, “I’ve got big plans, and you getting in the way really isn’t a part of them.” A low growl came from behind him. Dean swallowed, eyes widening. The man smiled at him, that same too-wide caricature of happiness. Another growl, and this time Dean couldn’t help but look over his shoulder._

_He didn’t know what it was at first, pinpoint pricks of red barely penetrating through the fog but as they grew closer and closer Dean finally realized what they were. Sucking in a quick, surprised breath, he looked back towards the other man, but he was gone, leaving Dean to face the creatures moving through the fog towards him alone. He could see more of them now, the black looming shape of their bodies pressing forward through the wisps of fog wrapping around them, glimpses of teeth and matted fur appearing alongside the glowing red of their eyes. They were far too high off the ground to belong to any dog or even a wolf. Hellhounds, his brain supplied, but that was impossible. He’d never met anyone who’d so much as seen one before. They only came topside to hunt down those who had made deals, and Dean sure as fuck hadn’t made any deal. Impossible or not though, they were drawing closer, and Dean braced himself as he levelled his gun at the one leading the pack. The lead bullets would barely slow them down, if they even affected them at all, and the steel knife at his waist would be just as ineffective against creatures with hellfire running through their veins, born of the pit and stronger even than demons. He had no other choice though, had to do something. Go down with a fight, even if it was inevitable that he would go down. At that thought, he felt a strange sense of calm pass over him, the knowledge that he was about to die more peaceful than scary._

_“C’mon you bastards,” he muttered, adjusting his stance as the cluster of glowing eyes split apart, the hounds moving to circle him. He kept his gaze on the leader even as he tried to keep track of the others in his peripheral vision. Their growls were deep and low and echoed against each other, bouncing back and forth across the field until he could barely hear the pounding of his own heartbeat in his ears. There was a strange rasping buzz behind each noise they made, and in the centre of each breath they let out, a snap like a fire spitting out a spark. He swallowed, and watched as the one in front of him crouched down, preparing to lunge towards him. He aimed his gun, squeezing the trigger just as the thing finally sprung into motion. The bullet hit it in the shoulder, and it danced backwards with a yelp of pain, and Dean took a second to glance around him to see that the others were still hanging back. Waiting for the leader to have the first bite, probably. They wouldn’t have to wait long. By the time Dean looked back at it, it was already beginning to circle back around, and as it limped closer Dean could see the way the blood red glow of its eyes, uninterrupted by a pupil, seemed to swirl darker and lighter, as if they were actually filled with blood. There were another two in his eyeline, but he couldn’t see the others anymore, and he tried not to think about the fact that death was just as likely to come tapping on his shoulder as it was to come at his face with long white teeth and acidic saliva dripping down and eating his skin away. He swallowed, bracing himself, and–_

_There was a whimper from behind him, a pained sound cut off as quickly as it had come, and Dean looked back over his shoulder to see the black shape of one of the hounds collapsed on the ground, lying still in a growing puddle of its own thick black blood. He blinked in surprise, and turned back just in time to watch a man shove a long silver blade through the throat of the leader of the pack. As he watched, the man withdrew the weapon, letting go with the hand that he’d had tangled in the thing’s fur, the hound falling limply to the ground. Straightening, the man kept his back turned to Dean as he looked towards the other hounds, head slowly moving as he looked at each hound in turn. The silver blade in his hand dripped thick black blood that hissed and sizzled as it hit the cold ground, and when Dean looked down he could see the frost melting from the grass where he stood, spreading steadily outwards. With his other hand spread wide, Dean could barely breathe for the power emanating from him. The other hounds were growling low in their throats, backing away from the man. Finally, one let out a yelp and they spun, running away and disappearing into the fog as quickly as they’d arrived. There was a long moment where they stayed like that, the man staring out into the fog and Dean staring at his back, before the man finally bent, wiping his blade clean on the fur of the dead monster before he straightened and turned back to Dean._

_Dean sucked in a sharp breath when the man’s eyes met Dean’s own with a level, blank stare. His gaze was as intense as it had been the last time Dean had seen it, though his blue eyes were shadowed and dark in the flat grey light. He was wearing the exact same outfit he had been the last time Dean had seen him as well, tan trenchcoat and white button-up and poorly knotted blue tie. The shock of seeing him reverberated through him, sending his thoughts scattering, any words he might have spoken abandoning his throat at the sight of him. The more instinctive part of Dean, the part that had spent his entire life getting up before sunrise to run drills, settled back into a fighting stance, gun pointed directly at the stranger’s chest. It didn’t do much to settle his thoughts though: head was still spinning with everything that had just happened – Sam and the man and the hellhounds – making it impossible to reconcile that he was now somehow seeing the same stranger he had spotted in San Juan de Guadalupe all those months ago. He didn’t understand any of it, and though he was pretty sure at this point that this was a dream, there was something that was telling him that everything that had happened was just as real as if he were awake. That if the dogs had reached him, had sunk their teeth into him and torn him apart, he would have been just as dead as he would have been in any other circumstance. The two men that had appeared to him had the same weight of reality behind them, and Dean knew too much about dreamwalking to let his guard down now. He tried to ignore the part of him that was already frantically trying to remember if he’d felt the same about Sam, if he had been real too or just a nightmare conjured up by the first man._

_Dean waited, but the man in front of him didn’t move, didn’t say anything, just continued to stand there, silently regarding Dean. There was something about him that was making the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck stand up, his instincts screaming danger despite the fact that the guy looked like a fucking accountant or something. Dean licked his lips, roughly swallowing before finally breaking the silence that stretched between them._

_“I know you,” he said. “In Mexico. You were there.” The man nodded._

_“I was,” he said, his voice unexpectedly low and rough, and he took a step forward, towards Dean. Dean instinctively mirrored the motion, moving backwards and steadying his grip on his gun, but the other man stopped, blinking and frowning slightly at Dean. In the low flat light, his skin appeared grey, making him look more like something carved out of stone than something living and breathing. His hair was chaos, dark black against the grey and white backdrop of the field. Now that he was closer, Dean could see that the other man was only slightly shorter than him. He was surprised to realize that he wasn’t at all physically intimidating, despite the way that Dean’s brain was still sending fear spiking through every nerve of his body, every piece of survival instinct he had signaling him that the man in front of him was a threat. For a brief moment Dean couldn’t focus on anything other than the dark stubble on his face, accenting the line of his jaw, the seriousness of his expression. Dean swallowed, the taste of fear sharp and heavy on his tongue._

_“Are you following me?” Dean asked when the other man didn’t continue. He slowly lowered his gun until it was pointing more in the vicinity of the other man’s ankles, in deference to the fact that the man hadn’t made any further move towards him but also in acknowledgement of his own physical limitations, the way that his arms had begun to shake with fading adrenaline and exhaustion besides. The other man didn’t reply, just continued to stare at him for a long, uncomfortable minute._

_“Who are you?” Dean tried, shifting slightly, keeping his stance loose, flexing his fingers around the grip of his gun. The silence wasn’t at all reassuring, and the entire situation was putting him on edge the way he only really ever was in the middle of a hunt, where awareness of any sound, any movement, could be the difference between life and death. The guy looked human enough, but that didn’t mean much, and the fact that he was in Dean’s head certainly wasn’t promising. And that wasn’t even touching on the hounds._

_When the other man continued to just stare at Dean, he raised his gun again, aiming it back at the other man’s chest._

_“I said, who are you,” he said._

_Just as Dean was beginning to lean towards switching to a shoot first, ask questions later approach, the man finally replied._

_“My name is Castiel.”_

_“Okay, Castiel,” Dean said. Weird name, he thought to himself as he relaxed slightly, the indication that the other man might be willing to answer some of Dean’s questions making him marginally less tense. He still didn’t lower his gun though. “Are you following me?” he asked again. The man cocked his head to the side, staring out into the fog as he appeared to think about his answer._

_“In the physical sense that you mean, no, I am not following you,” he said, and Dean felt a chill crawl up his spine at the implication buried in that phrasing._

_“Are you following me in a different sense?” he asked. The man’s eyes found his again, and the look in them was so focused, so intense, that Dean had to fight his body’s urge to flinch away from it._

_“I am attuned to your soul, Dean Winchester,” he said. “I am not following you, but I will always be able to find you.” Dean blinked at him. That was… he had no idea what that was._

_“What?” he said, deciding there was no point in hiding his confusion. The fact that he was still afraid, was becoming more and more so the longer he spoke to Castiel, that one he’d try to keep to himself for as long as possible. “What does that mean?” He paused, then decided he might as well go all in. “What are you?” he asked. At that final question, the man, Castiel, seemed to almost relax, as if that was the easiest question Dean had directed at him yet._

_“I’m an angel of the Lord,” Castiel said, and Dean couldn’t do anything but gape at him for a long moment, the barrel of his gun dipping down even further before he caught himself. Whatever answer he’d expected Castiel to give, it certainly hadn’t been that._

_“There’s no such thing,” Dean said, pointing his gun firmly at the centre of the other man– monster, whatever –’s chest. Castiel looked confused, or maybe angry, his brow furrowing in response to Dean’s words._

_“This is your problem Dean,” he said. “You have no faith.” Dean shook his head._

_“No,” he insisted, “there aren’t. They’re a myth, a story.” Whatever he is, he clearly doesn’t need to blink, Dean thought. He didn’t understand what was going on, and nothing that Castiel had said or done had helped to explain it. He was certain that Castiel wasn’t human, but why a monster would claim to be an angel – not just a whole other creature, but one that didn’t even exist – was completely beyond him. How and why either him or the other man had gotten inside his head was another question he still had no answer to, but was one that was putting him increasingly on edge._

_“You believe in demons but not angels?” Castiel asked, now openly frowning. “You hunt the things of myths and legends every day. Your entire life has been shaped by the things that other humans look away from.”_

_“Yeah well, I’ve seen a lot of fucking demons,” Dean said, voice turning harsh with the anger that Castiel’s words had set alight in his chest, a welcome relief from the fear that he had been feeling. “And I’ve never seen an angel.”_

_Castiel stared at him, just as flat and expressionless as before and yet somehow still managing to convey an unimpressed ‘you have now’. Dean shook his head again._

_“Look pal, I’m not buying what you’re selling, so who are you, really?” Castiel tilted his head to the side, an expression of confusion again passing over his face._

_“I told you.”_

_“Right,” Dean said. “And why would an angel rescue me from weird dream hellhounds? That other man too, whoever he was.” Castiel narrowed his eyes, taking a step closer._

_“Good things do happen, Dean,” he said._

_“Not in my experience,” Dean said, adjusting his stance at his approach, balancing his weight in preparation for a fight. Castiel glanced at Dean’s gun, then back up to his face._

_“You cannot hurt me,” Castiel said, “in either this realm or your own.” Dean bared his teeth at him in an expression that was somewhere between a smile and a grimace._

_“Is that a threat?” he said._

_“It is a fact,” Castiel replied, voice flat and filled with certainty, before taking another step towards Dean. Dean tightened his grip on his gun, centring it on Castiel’s chest._

_“Don’t,” he warned, but Castiel just kept walking forward. Dean didn’t wait to give him the chance to reach Dean, to do whatever he was planning on doing to him. He squeezed the trigger, Castiel still safely out of arm’s reach._

_Dean watched as the bullet tore a hole in the fabric of Castiel’s shirt, into the skin beneath, and then… nothing. No blood, no wound, no bullet. Dean blinked. There was a hole in the fabric, the bullet had done that much, but there was absolutely nothing but unmarked skin beneath it. Dean’s eyes widened as his heart began pounding in his ears. He didn’t wait, didn’t hesitate, just fired again, and again, nothing happening each time. Castiel was only a few feet away from him when Dean finally abandoned the gun, dropping it in favour of drawing his knife and stepping forward to slam it into the other man’s chest, down to the hilt._

_Castiel didn’t so much as flinch, and when Dean pulled the knife back out it was as clean and dry as if it had never entered the other man – the other thing, whatever it was – at all. He blinked at it, shocked, mouth dropping open in surprise. He didn’t have time to do anything else but turn his eyes back to Castiel’s face though, before Castiel was upon him, raising his hand to Dean’s temple, two fingers pressing surprisingly gently against the skin there. Dean squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for pain, but instead felt a strange rush move through him, a liquid warmth like he had just stepped into a hot bath, followed by a sudden twisting ache that disappeared into nothing. Nothing else happened and when he finally opened his eyes, he found Castiel standing inches away from him, staring directly into his eyes._

_“Wha–” Dean started._

_“I will see you again, Dean Winchester,” he said, and then he disappeared with a distant echoing sound, like the flapping of impossibly large wings. Dean was left, once again, standing alone in the cold, staring out at the empty field. He blinked,_

and sat up with a gasp, hand clenching around a gun that was no longer there, sheets pooling around his waist. Beside him, Kateria made a small noise of protest but didn’t wake, settling deeper into the pillows as Dean’s wide, scared eyes passed over her body to the rest of the room. There was nothing there, just shadows and the sounds of Dean’s own ragged, desperate breaths. He reached beneath his pillow and grabbed his gun, his real gun, the difference between it and the dream version of it obvious only now that he was once again holding the real one, cold metal a comfort against his skin as he slid out of bed. Naked, he silently crossed the room, slipping out of the door to search the rest of the house. 

By the time he reached the kitchen, he had to admit that what his gut had told him the second he woke was true: they were alone in the house. Whatever the things that had invaded his dreams had been, they had not followed him to the waking world. Dean swallowed, standing still in the moonlight, staring blindly at the sink and trying to process what just happened. He was exhausted though, had scarcely slept at all going by the clock on the stove. The taste of fear was still hot and bitter on his tongue, and his heart rate hadn’t slowed at all since he woke. He could barely think about everything that had happened, everything that had been said to him, much less try and understand it. How it had even happened at all, how he’d ended up in that strange place that twined together reality and dream. Fuck, he needed to talk Katerina into letting him ward the whole house when she woke up – that he’d somehow been dragged into that place from her bed definitely meant that the current warding wasn’t nearly good enough. He blinked, swaying with fatigue, and frowned. There had been no pain to the movement, and Dean belatedly realized that he was able to see normally out of both eyes, had been the entire time he’d searched the house. He raised his hand to his face slowly, fingertips no longer sending an ache through his whole face as he pressed down on the smooth skin there, hot to the touch. He stood still for a long second before he looked down, twisting to expose his side fully to the moonlight spilling into the room through the window. His breath caught in his throat, and he wasn’t able to do anything but stare down at his body in shock. 

The wounds were gone, the skin as smooth and unblemished as if they’d never been there at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's here and he's perfect!!! I'm currently on S13 in my rewatch/finally watch the last four seasons for the first time so I had to go back and rewatch some of his first few episodes to remind myself of how sombre and righteous he was. 
> 
> s/o to Helen for the beta, as always so incredibly appreciative of you screaming at me in the comments/pointing out when I've used the same word four times in two sentences.


	8. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2004

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: child death

**Salt Lake City, Utah, 2004**

Sam froze, the sound of the floorboard creaking under his foot painfully loud in the otherwise still air. He stood completely still for one second, then another, listening. There was no pause in the conversation he could faintly hear above him, and after a moment he continued walking through the front hallway, careful to be cautious of the old, loose floorboards bending under his weight. He wrinkled his nose. The building was so old and decrepit, it would be a miracle if no one inside fell through the floor before the end of the night. Though he supposed that was the least of his worries, and the least of the worries of the teenagers wandering around the second story above him too, though they didn’t know that yet. He took two more slow steps forward before the hallway opened up into a large front room. Sam stopped, quickly surveying the space then glancing at his watch. _Soon,_ he thought, looking back up. There was little of the original furniture left in the room, aside from a horribly threadbare sofa against one wall. Instead, battery-powered lamps and sleeping bags lay scattered around the room. There were a few video cameras too, but no real equipment otherwise, no sign of sigils or salt lines. _Idiots,_ Sam thought as the sound of someone laughing loudly drew his attention back to the people moving through the house above him. He needed to hurry.

Moving as quickly as he was able to while still not making any noise to give himself away, Sam approached the bag closest to him, a small grey backpack leaning against a still rolled-up sleeping bag. Putting his flashlight between his teeth, Sam pulled on a pair of black latex gloves and carefully unzipped the bag. It was a mess, clothing shoved in without any sense of order, a phone charger tangled in a pair of socks, a granola bar crushed almost flat. Sam smiled around the flashlight, quickly sorting through the chaos. If all the bags were as disorganized as this one, all the better, though it did prove disappointingly empty. He supposed it would have been too easy, requiring the kind of luck he had never in his life had, for it to be the first bag he searched. He glanced around himself for another bag as he shoved everything back into the first one, sparing a moment to listen to the distant sounds of people still moving around above him. Spitting the flashlight back out into his hand, he quickly picked his way across the floor to the next bag he’d spotted, a bright pink backpack covered in pins. He winced as they rattled against each other as he unzipped it, but refocused as soon as he could see its contents, sighing as he saw how neatly it was packed. Sticking his flashlight back into his mouth, Sam quickly memorized the layout of the bag before he began emptying it of its contents.

It wasn’t until the fourth bag, conveniently leaning up against the third one, that he found what he was looking for, a handful of neatly tied hex bags and what looked like a toiletry bag but which actually just contained more spell-making supplies. No grimoire, but there was a notebook filled with what looked like homebrew spells. _Great,_ Sam thought with a sigh. His favourite thing – unknown spells with no obvious countercurse. Pulling out his phone, Sam quickly flipped through the book, taking photos of all of the pages. Barely paying attention to what his hands were doing, he began repacking the bag, shoving everything back in exactly as he’d found it. His attention turned upwards as he did so, towards the sounds coming from above him. They had faded significantly for a while as they went up, Sam assumed, to the third floor, maybe even all the way up to the attic, but they were getting louder again, the sound of footsteps against the floor growing closer and closer. Sam swore to himself, shoving in the last of the clothing and hastily zipping the bag shut, standing and heading back towards the hallway that he’d come in through. The footsteps above were getting louder as they came closer to the stairs leading down to the room that Sam was just now leaving. The creak of floorboards, the shuffle of feet, was accompanied by the indistinct murmur of voices that were becoming more and more clear as they drew nearer to the stairwell. Sam hurried down the hallway, avoiding the floorboard that had creaked so loudly before, letting out a relieved breath when he reached the front door and there was still no one in sight, no one yet coming down the stairs. Sam reached out for the doorknob, swung the door all the way open, the star-bright sky revealing itself to him in a rush of sharp night air. Sam didn’t move through the door, instead immediately slamming it back shut, the darkness of the hallway once again swallowing him whole. He smiled in satisfaction when it banged loudly, the voices behind him abruptly cutting off at the sound. Taking a deep breath, Sam turned back around, drawing his shoulders upwards slightly, forcing tension into his spine. He began walking, retracing the path he’d taken only seconds earlier. He glanced down, making sure to step on that same rotten spot this time, and swore when he realized that he’d forgotten to take off the gloves. Fumbling, he almost dropped his flashlight, but had just managed to get them off and shoved into his pocket when he stepped into sight of the main room. 

“Hey!” someone yelled. The voice was loud, meant to startle, so Sam made himself jump, swinging his flashlight wildly over to where the group of kids were now standing, stopped at various points down the length of the staircase. Both of the girls, the closest to the top of the stairs, looked scared, as did one of the boys, though the one standing at the bottom of the stairs, and the one heading down to join him just looked pissed off. But Sam could smell the fear undercutting the mask of bravado and anger on both of them, and he fought the urge to sneer at them. All that fear, and they didn’t even understand what they actually needed to be afraid of, what the real dangers were to them. Sam barely managed to get out a startled greeting in return before the boy at the front, one of the angry ones, was speaking over him.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he demanded, walking across the floor until he was only a meter away from Sam. Sam saw the moment he registered just how big Sam was, though it didn’t seem to throw him off as much as it did his friend, now pulling even with him. They were both big guys in their own right though, and after a second they seemed to recover, angry expressions solidifying as they glared at him in unison. _Cute,_ Sam thought, forcibly tamping down on the urge to grin at them. _Like a puppy pretending to be a guard dog._

“Sorry,” Sam said, making sure to make his voice waver slightly, keeping his eyes open wide. “I didn’t… I didn’t think anyone else would be here. I was just…” he trailed off, glancing around nervously. The other kids had made their way off the stairs, and were now approaching him as well. One of the girls stepped up next to the two boys attempting to intimidate him. 

“Looking for ghosts?” she asked, and he turned to her, surprise flowing over his face. She nodded, gestured around at the group. “Us too,” she said. 

“Nicole,” hissed the other girl, but the one speaking to Sam – Nicole – didn’t acknowledge her. 

“You should leave,” the boy who’d first confronted Sam said, moving so that he was more directly in Sam’s eyeline, trying to draw his attention off of Nicole. “We got here first.” Sam fought the urge to roll his eyes. 

“I have just as much a right to be here as you do,” Sam said, voice turning indignant. The boy snorted. 

“Yeah, well, we were here first. So you can fuck off now,” he said, making a sweeping gesture towards Sam. Sam raised a hand, checking his watch again under the guise of rubbing at his face, using that same hand to hide his smile when he saw the time. _Perfect,_ he thought as he dropped his hand, pasting a resigned expression onto his face. Their eyes followed his hand, gazes fixed on the tattoo standing stark and black against the pale skin, jumping to the matching tattoo on the other hand. Sam fought the instinctive urge to shove his hands into his pockets. 

“Fine,” he said, letting resignation shift to anger in his voice, turning on his heel and stalking towards the front door. He could hear the teenagers following after him, watching to make sure he left. _Perfect,_ he thought again, smiling to himself as he reached the door. Or rather, when he reached where the door should have been. He jerked to a halt, just in time to hear the sharp indrawn breath of the kids behind him as they saw his flashlight beam hit the blank wall. 

“What the hell,” someone said, voice soft with surprise. 

“What the fuck,” a more familiar voice said, louder and closer, and Sam found himself unceremoniously shoved to the side by the boy who was apparently the self-appointed leader of their small group. Sam ground his teeth together, swallowing down the anger that rushed through him as his shoulder hit the wall. The entire group watched as the boy patted at the blank stretch of wall, and Sam took another deep breath and forced his expression back into one of surprise and fear, joining the others in watching as the boy searched futilely for the doorknob, for the edge of the door, any sign that there ever was an exit there. He wouldn’t find one, Sam knew, and he wondered if they knew that, if they had bothered to research the house they’d decided to hunt for ghosts in, or if they’d just heard _ghosts_ and decided that was enough information for them. Based on the angry look on the boy’s face when he spun back to Sam, Sam was guessing it was the latter. 

“What the fuck did you do?” he demanded, and Sam stumbled back, eyes wide, hands held out in front of him in a gesture of supplication and surrender, sending the beam of his flashlight skittering over the ceiling. 

“I didn’t do anything!” he said. The boy took a menacing step forward before one of the other boys managed to wedge himself between them. 

“Kyle, chill out,” he said, gesturing to Sam. “Can’t you see he’s just as freaked out as the rest of us?” Kyle glared at Sam. 

“All I know is that there was a door there before he showed up out of nowhere, and now there isn’t one.” 

“So you think he somehow made a door disappear?” the boy asked. “Kyle, c’mon.” 

“We should check the other doors,” one of the girls interjected, and that suggestion managed to draw the attention of the whole group. There was a long moment of silence as the teenagers glanced nervously at each other. When no one argued, the girl who had spoken turned and led the way back to the main room, long white braids almost glowing in the darkness as they swung behind her. The other girl rushed after her, speaking to her quickly but under her breath, not loud enough for Sam to catch it. There was a confusion of arguments and hushed speculation as they dispersed through the main room, half the teenagers still eyeing Sam nervously even as they grabbed lamps and flashlights from among their backpacks and sleeping bags. They only hesitated for a moment though, before they all headed off without any further discussion. The two girls went off as a pair, but two of the boys went off on their own, and Sam couldn’t help but stare after them in shocked incredulity. _Jesus, civilians are stupid,_ he thought. Somehow, it still always surprised him. _It’s like none of them have ever watched a horror movie._ For his part, he didn’t bother even making a gesture to follow after any of them – after all, he knew what they would find, and since Kyle had apparently elected to stay behind and stare at Sam with open hostility and suspicion, he figured it would probably be better not to disappear from his sight quite yet. The slow build up of the lie, the creation of a fragile trust and sense of camaraderie was fun and all, but he was also on a deadline, and the faster he could get these kids to stop seeing him as a potential threat the better. It wasn’t long, anyways, before the kids began to return, all frightened expressions and jumbled explanations of blank and empty walls: no windows, no doors, no nothing. 

“We’re trapped,” one of the boys helpfully offered. 

“It’s him,” the other girl, the one with the braids said. “Drahomir.” Kyle rolled his eyes. 

“Shut up Chrissy, it is not,” he said. “I know Jason talked this place up–” he gestured at the boy who’d said they were trapped, Kyle’s partner in trying to intimidate Sam “–but it was just to scare you. Ghosts aren’t real.” Sam didn’t bother to hide the frown he shot at him, though he made sure it was more one of mild confusion than the contempt he was actually feeling. _God,_ but he hated spending time with civilians.

“You did something,” Jason said, repeating Kyle’s earlier accusation as he pointed at Sam. Sam let his eyes widen, taking a couple steps back and shaking his head. 

“No,” he said, voice nervous but insistent. “I didn’t! I just came to see if I could find evidence of ghost activity, here look,” he said, swinging his backpack off his shoulder, opening it to pull out an EMF reader. He waved it at the boy, who didn’t seem at all mollified, instead reaching out to grab the backpack. 

“Give me that,” he said, and Sam let it go easily. There was nothing in there, just a handful of other ghost hunting devices, some salt, a few extra shirts. Items he’d picked up to help build his cover, not because they were actually useful. If they actually searched him they’d find the knife hidden in his jacket, the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants, but he was fairly confident that they wouldn’t have the guts to search a stranger, if the thought even occurred to them at all. Unsurprisingly, going through the bag seemed to be enough, and the boy handed the bag back to him with an expression that was only slightly placated. 

“Fine,” Kyle said, having watched the whole thing with crossed arms and a stormy expression. “So you’re here to hunt ghosts, great. That still doesn’t answer the question of why all the doors just fucking disappeared.” The group shifted, nervous, glancing around at each other. Sam mentally cursed them for not having done even a minute of research, before taking a deep breath and breaking the tense silence. 

“Actually,” he said, “it kind of does.” He shrank back when everyone turned to look at him, eyes flicking nervously around the circle. 

“What do you mean?” Nicole asked. Sam frowned. 

“You said you came here to look for ghosts,” he said. “Do you not know?” 

“Know what?” Jason asked, voice loud and angry. Sam looked around the circle again. 

“That legend says that if you stay here past sunset, you’ll be trapped here until sunrise,” he answered.

“I’ve never heard that,” Chrissy said, expression even more nervous than it had been before. Sam shrugged. 

“It’s not like, widely known,” he said. “I found out about it mostly through interviews with some of the local residents. I’m doing my masters degree in folklore and legends,” he added. “I’ve been doing field research, visiting haunted houses and stuff. This is the second one I’ve been to.” 

“Yeah?” the final boy asked, expression curious. “Did you find anything at the first one?” Sam winced. 

“There was a rocking chair that I thought maybe moved? But no, not really.” 

“Oh,” the boy said, sounding disappointed. “Well, did–”

“Okay Ryan, shut up. None of this is helping us get out of here any faster,” Kyle interjected.

“I mean you heard him!” Chrissy said, voice creeping upwards in both pitch and volume. “He said we can’t get out until sunrise.” 

“And we’re supposed to just trust some random guy?” Kyle shot back, and the teenagers began speaking over each other, the conversation rapidly devolving into confusion as they drew together into a tighter circle. 

“We need to–”

“–do you suggest? Because–”

“Don’t be an asshole Kyle, we–”

“–and I’m _scared_ and–”

“That’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying we need to–”

“–don’t know anything about him.”

Sam stepped back and just listened as they argued about what to do next, and, quieter, whether or not they could trust Sam. _Nope,_ Sam thought to himself, but predictably that was not the consensus reached by the group. Instead, Nicole eventually split away from everyone else, walking over to Sam as the others slowly stopped talking. 

“I’m Nicole,” she said, and Sam tentatively reached out to take hold of her proffered hand. 

“Sam,” he said, trying to push as much innocence and warmth into his smile as he could. He could see a couple of the other teenagers relax slightly at the sight of it, though Kyle and Jason still looked pissed off. Still, as long as he could get the majority of them to trust him, that would be good enough for what he needed to do here. The upside of running a short con, he supposed. Less time to build up trust, but also less need for it to stand up to any sort of test. 

“So, Sam,” Nicole said. “Why don’t you tell us what you know about this place?” Sam shrugged, affecting self-consciousness. 

“It’s not a lot,” he said. “Allegedly this guy, Drahomir Novikov, was a serial killer who would bring his victims here to torture and kill them. But I haven’t been able to find any evidence of that in police records or papers, just that someone with that name did live here. There’ve been reports of ghost sightings on this property for almost sixty years though, so I figured I’d come and see if I could find any signs of EMF, something to let me know if it’s worth trying to dig for actual info.” Nicole bit her lip, glancing at the other kids. 

“So do you think it’s a ghost? That’s doing this? For real?” Sam shrugged, clutching his backpack tight to his chest as if nervous. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted, making his voice waver slightly. “I’ve never… this is the second haunted house I’ve ever been to, I’ve never even seen a ghost.” 

“Fuck,” Jason swore, turning to look at Kyle. “We need to get out of here man,” he said. Kyle shot him an annoyed look. 

“Yeah?” he said. “And how exactly are you proposing we do that?” As Jason opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, cogs in his brain almost visibly turning, Sam quickly ran his eyes over the group, taking stock of their expressions. They all looked pissed or afraid, or both. He waited, giving them another minute to move past fear and anger to action, but the minute passed in total silence. _Time to move things along,_ Sam thought.

“We should search the house,” Sam said, shrinking back when the group again turned towards him. 

“Why?” Chrissy said, looking more nervous than ever. “We’ve already checked, there’s no way to get out.”

“Maybe that’s not what we need to look for though?” Ryan interjected. “Maybe there’s something else that could help? Something left over from when Drahomir was alive.” He glanced at Sam, clearly needing validation. Sam nodded. 

“That makes sense,” Nicole said, turning to Kyle, who, after a tense moment, reluctantly nodded his agreement. 

“Yeah ok, but we go in pairs, okay? No one should be alone.” Kyle said before walking over to one of the bags – the first one Sam had searched – digging through it before eventually emerging with an extra set of batteries, that he pocketed. Nicole and Chrissy were having a whispered conversation, while Ryan stood in the middle of the room, eyes nervously flicking from person to person. Jason had peeled off from the group at the same time as Kyle had, and Sam watched out of the corner of his eye as he walked towards the backpack that had had all the spell-making supplies. He crouched down in front of the bags, blocking what he was doing from Sam’s view, but Sam could still see when he slipped something into his pocket. _Got you,_ Sam thought, barely tamping down on the urge to smile. The group came back together in the middle of the room, and there was a moment of silence as they all looked around at each other.

“So…?” Chrissy said, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing at her arms. Kyle opened his mouth to reply, but Ryan interrupted him before he could.

“The girls shouldn’t be alone,” Ryan said. He was looking at Chrissy, smiling at her in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring, but was itself too nervous to really do the job. “I’ll come with you Chrissy,” he said. 

“I want to go with Kyle then,” Nicole interrupted, staring at the other boy intently. Kyle met her eyes with an equal amount of intensity, while Jason just looked pissed off. Sam looked between the three teenagers. There was definitely something going on there, but he didn’t really care enough to speculate, and if it got him alone with Jason all the better. Kyle gave Jason what seemed to be a significant head tilt, but the other boy just continued to stare back at him, anger obvious on his face. 

“Fine,” Kyle finally said, glancing at Nicole before his eyes slid over to where Sam was standing in the background. “You’re with Jason,” he said, and Sam nodded. 

“Okay,” he said. Jason’s expression was even more pissed off than before. Whatever. 

“Alright,” Kyle said. “Me and Nicole will take the second floor, Chrissy and Ryan, you take the attic, and Sam and Jason can do the basement. Good?” 

“The basement?” Jason said. “Dude–” Kyle gave him a sharp look, and Jason threw his hands up. “Fine, whatever,” he said, and Sam and Jason stood and waited as the rest of the group turned to head up the stairs. Sam eyed Jason up out of the corner of his eye. He was a big guy, not quite as tall as Sam but close, and though Sam could definitely take him in a physical fight, he’d much rather it not come to that. Better to do this in a way that he wouldn’t see coming. 

Jason gestured for Sam to follow him through the only other doorway in the room. Sam went easily, barely paying attention, still running over his options in his head. The issue, really, was that there were still so many hours left until sunrise. He didn’t know if the summoning spell would work through the magical barrier put up by the ghost, so it would probably be better to wait until he could make a clean escape by just walking out the door. On the other hand, being alone with Jason right now was the kind of opportunity that he might not get again before the end of the night. He spent a brief second wishing that he could just use his knife, something that would make it easy to pass off as something the ghost had done. He shoved the thought away – there was no point in wishing for impossibilities. They were standing in an ancient kitchen now, and Sam added his own flashlight’s yellow beam to Jason’s, already sliding over its contents. Unlike Jason, Sam was barely registering what he was looking at, though he did take note of the rusted out knives hanging from the wall, and the way that it looked like something impossibly strong had smashed straight through the heavy wooden kitchen table. Jason had obviously noticed it as well, staring at it nervously. Sam wondered why he would look afraid, before reminding himself that as far as Jason knew, he needed to keep up the same act in front of Sam as he had in front of the whole group of teenagers. Turning his head, Sam let his flashlight drift around the room one last time. He thought he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned there was nothing there but shadows and dust. He fought the urge to sigh. Of course the actual ghost was going to make an appearance. Drahomir Novikov might not have been a serial killer, but his neighbors who had started those rumours had been right to be suspicious of the man. There had been a lot of black magic performed in this house over the decades that Novikov had lived there, and a lot of blood spilled. It was hardly a surprise that when one of his rituals had finally turned on him, his spirit would decide to remain here, powers amplified far beyond what would normally be possible for such a fresh haunting thanks to all the magic still lingering in the bones of the house. 

“There’s nothing here,” Jason whispered, and Sam turned back to him. 

There was a face floating just behind Jason’s shoulder, skin peeled away, a mess of raw, bleeding flesh and grinning teeth. Though it was closest to Jason, it was Sam that it was looking at, eyes bloodshot and bulging out of the desiccated remains of the muscles of its eye sockets. Sam didn’t even blink, didn’t look at it directly, just nodded his agreement. The face flickered out of view just before Jason’s own eyes would have reached it as he turned his flashlight reluctantly towards the other door in the room. To the basement, Sam guessed, and he didn’t blame Jason for his reluctance. Jason probably had a much better idea of what was happening in the house than the rest of them, what the spirit there was capable of, given what he’d come to the house for. He also probably knew just as well as Sam did that everything he was looking for was in the basement, and that he had to go down there if he wanted to get it. It would provoke Novikov, and Sam spent a wishful second imagining Novikov just impaling Jason on a piece of rebar for Sam, before sighing and following Jason towards the basement door. 

The stairs were long, narrow, and sank downwards into a pool of darkness. Sam and Jason stood side by side looking down the steps for a long moment, then glanced at each other, Jason’s wide eyes meeting Sam’s own. His gaze flicked down at Sam’s hand, still pointing his flashlight down towards the darkness before them. The beam didn’t seem to go as far as it should, the light yellow and weak against the thick shadows below. 

“You’re shaking,” Jason whispered. Sam glanced down at his own hand, surprised. _Fuck,_ he was shaking. Not badly, not yet, nothing more than a fine tremble, but Sam knew his body, knew the signs. He only had a couple of hours before it would get bad enough to affect his dexterity. Another deadline to add to the ones already weighing him down. He ignored the whisper at the back of his mind that told him it was happening faster, that it was getting worse. It wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it, especially not here. 

“Just nervous, I guess,” he whispered back. 

Jason gave him an understanding look, then turned his attention back to the stairs beneath them. “I guess I’ll go first,” he said, reluctance obvious in his voice. He glanced at Sam, clearly hoping for an argument, but Sam just stared at him. Jason turned his head back slowly, a resigned expression washing over his face. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and took a deep breath before putting his foot down on the top step. 

Despite the theatrics, they both made it all the way down to the bottom of the stairs without incident. Their flashlights still didn’t seem to penetrate the darkness the way they should have, like the shadows had their own weight, a viscosity that the light was struggling to push its way through. A feeling of wrongness crawled across Sam’s skin, putting him on edge. For the first time, he could truly feel the presence of the spirit that occupied the house, its energy settling in the room like a fog, cloaking and infusing everything it touched. It was powerful, not enough to be truly dangerous to Sam but enough that he wasn’t able to resist calling just a little of his own power to the surface, a comfort and a precaution both. Despite the overwhelming feeling of dread filling the basement, they hadn’t yet seen anything, and Jason walked further into the room, Sam trailing after him. Jason was keeping his flashlight level, sweeping from side to side. It seemed like they’d already walked further than they should have been able to without seeing a wall, without seeing anything, but there was nothing around them, just empty air and hard packed dirt below. Sam glanced over his shoulder, and the realization that he couldn’t see the stairs sent real fear spiking through his gut for the first time. He quickly shoved it down, rolling his eyes at himself. He was still the most dangerous thing in this house, he reminded himself. Even if the other things in the basement with him might disagree. Turning back around, his flashlight hit Jason’s back. All at once, both their lights flickered once, twice, and then went out, the white glow of Jason’s shirt immediately eaten by the complete darkness.

“S– Sam?” Jason’s voice emerged from the darkness, but Sam didn’t bother to reply, too busy reaching out with his other senses. It was the kind of darkness that you normally only found inside caves, buried deep within the belly of the earth. The kind of absolute night where you couldn’t tell if you had your eyes open or shut. It shouldn’t have been that dark in any basement, much less the basement of a house as rotted and dilapidated as this one. And yet, somehow, it was. Sam closed his eyes, blocking out the sound of Jason repeating his name, his quickening breaths audible as he began to panic. The scorn he felt at Jason’s fear was distant, fading rapidly as he reached out with his mind. The basement was just as impossibly large in his head as he had begun to suspect while walking through it, but in the landscape of his mind he was able to see where the metaphysical walls lay, where what _was_ fractured and dissolved into what _never was_. A grey figure flickered into being in the middle of that huge blank space, and Sam smiled as the specter of Drahomir Novikov regarded him. Its expression was blank, but there was an awareness, an intelligence behind its eyes that far outstripped that which a typical spirit was capable of. Whether it was because of what he’d done before death, what he’d been doing when he’d died, or the sheer luck of dying in a place where so much magic had been performed, Novikov had become a powerful ghost. Possibly more powerful and effective than he’d been in life even, if the number of people who had died horribly in the house since he’d begun haunting the building was anything to go off of. Sam once again wondered at the stupidity of the children locked in this house with him, that they apparently hadn’t thought to check just how many people had died or gone missing in the allegedly haunted house. 

_What are you?_ the ghost said. Its mouth didn’t move but its words echoed in Sam’s head all the same. Sam smiled again. 

_Nothing that you need to worry about,_ he thought. _If you stay out of my way, I’ll leave you here to your fun._ A flash of anger, then, across Novikov’s face.

 _You do not command me,_ it said, loud enough to make Sam’s head ache. _This is my domain, not yours._

 _This might be your house,_ Sam acknowledged, _but that doesn’t make this your domain._ The specter’s eyes flared red, and in a whisper it was standing inches in front of Sam’s face. Sam stared into its eyes without blinking, letting it take in how calm he was even as he began to release his power up out of his core into the rest of him. 

When Sam had first been learning how to use the power, he’d been told to try and feel where it lived in the centre of him and then pull it out, but it had never felt like that to him. It was more like turning on a faucet, a lever somewhere deep inside of him where the power was just waiting behind it, ready to pour out of him the second he allowed it to. It wasn’t something he had to _pull,_ but rather something that wanted out, that he just needed to _release_. He didn’t know what that meant really, but he’d never told anyone that, had just nodded along with the explanations of what it should feel like, what he should be doing. He was also pretty certain that there wasn’t supposed to be as much of it as there was, a spring inside of him that he’d yet to find the bottom of, though he’d pretended to, a couple of times. Letting himself fall to his knees, blood covering his face, failing tests even understanding what the punishment would be. He couldn’t remember why he’d started lying really, had started it so long ago that the memories were all but lost to the jagged shards of pain and scars that those early years had calcified into. Now, it was too late to stop, not that it mattered in this moment. Not like Novikov was going to be able to tell anyone about the wave of power that rushed through Sam, filling him up and making his mouth taste of iron and wind. 

Sam’s power slammed into Novikov’s with a force that made the spectral form slide backwards, though there was nothing physically happening. Where it hit him, Sam could see white fissure lines sparking out from Novikov, branching out into the darkness, into the bones of the house, up through its every limb. _I see,_ he thought. _I see you._ Novikov flickered, and then his power was hitting back at Sam in turn. Sam allowed himself to stumble back a pace as the force of it hit the wall of Sam’s defenses, though it didn’t actually do anything to pierce them. He could see Novikov’s eyes widen, and he smiled again. _I told you,_ he thought at the spectre. _This isn’t your domain._ Sam shoved forward with his hands, using them to direct his power as it rushed towards Novikov. Novikov’s eyes widened, and then flickered, disappearing alongside the rest of him as the specter vanished. There was a flash of white as the ghost retreated along the lines of power that he had seen earlier, scars of magic and pain that were indelibly etched throughout the house. Without anything to hit, Sam’s power dissipated, flowing out from him in a wash like the tide going out, and Sam let it go. Novikov wasn’t gone, but he was gone for now, and that was all Sam needed. 

“What just happened?” came a voice out of the darkness, and Sam opened his eyes to find that his flashlight had turned itself back on, the beam still trained on Jason who was now looking back at Sam with wide, scared eyes. Sam tried to mould his face into the same expression, but wasn’t sure he was successful. Jason didn’t look at all reassured, either way. Sam was losing patience with the ruse though, and the interlude with Novikov had thoroughly pushed him out of the mindset of a scared, overwhelmed grad student. 

“I don’t know,” Sam said, running his flashlight beam over the room. With Novikov gone, it was just a basement again, the light reaching as far as it should, hitting dust and crates and old, broken furniture. He turned, and saw that the staircase had materialized out of the darkness as well, the shape of it easy to make out even from the furthest side of the room, where they had ended up. The sound of feet scuffing against the ground brought his attention back to Jason, who was walking towards what looked like a workstation at the back of the room. He didn’t even glance at Sam as he passed, attention fixed on the glass-fronted cabinets and worn wooden tabletop. Sam again felt the urge to smile, and this time he didn’t bother to resist, letting a slow, satisfied grin stretch across his face as he followed after him. Jason seemed to have completely forgotten about him, eyes wide as he reached out a hand to run it over the front of the glass cabinet, the reverence on his face sharply at odds with the aggressiveness he’d worn earlier. Just as much a mask as Sam’s fear, apparently, and Sam kept his distance, just observing as Jason brushed aside a cobweb to open the cabinets. The inside was chaos, books and jars and dried herbs shoved between them, a human skull balancing precariously on top of the lot. He was still a few feet back of Jason, but even from here he could see a worn copy of Mina Bhàsa’s grimoire, and the Sillispan Book of the Damned. Sam could feel the power and energy coming off of it. For the right person, with the right skills and knowledge, all they would have to do was touch some of the items to unlock their power. Novikov must have spent a large portion of his death just stopping anyone from ever reaching it, for something so valuable to have remained untouched for so long. It made Sam wonder just how many of its victims were unwitting civilians, and how many had actually come to the house with the same purpose that Jason had. As Sam watched, Jason reached his hand up towards the books in a slow, worshipful movement. He ran his fingers down the spine of one of the books, leaving a long smear in the dust coating it. Sam finally shook himself clear of his own reverie, drawing his gun. The sound of the safety clicking off didn’t even seem to reach Jason, and Sam didn’t wait any longer before aiming the gun and squeezing the trigger. 

The sound of the gunshot was shockingly loud, even knowing it was coming, and the sound echoed impossibly through the room over and over. It left Sam’s ears ringing as he lowered the weapon, watching the blood run down the contents of the cabinet. He saw something flicker to life as the blood slid down it; a glass orb glowing dark purple. He only had a second to contemplate how stupid it had been for him to add blood to a cabinet full of magical objects before his attention was jerked away from whatever was awakening there by a scream, loud and echoing. He turned his head to see that while his attention had been focused on Jason, the rest of the teenagers had apparently come looking for them, and were now standing in a cluster at the bottom of the stares, faces shocked and terrified. 

“Fuck,” he said, raising his gun again and pointing it at the group, holding the flashlight up alongside it. Chrissy screamed again, though shorter this time, her hands flying up to clap over her own mouth, thank god. “Move away from the stairs,” he said, walking slowly across the room. They obeyed instantly, though they moved in a slow shuffle, Kyle putting himself in front of the group like the idiot he was, arms spread protectively. Like that would do anything, even if Sam had just been an ordinary man with a gun. Sam ran his eyes over all their faces. They all looked equally shocked and scared. _Fuck,_ he repeated to himself. _Fuck fuck fuck_. He couldn’t believe he’d fucked up this badly, after how careful he’d been, how well it had been going. _I just killed a kid,_ some small, shocked and numb part of his brain thought, and his stomach rolled. Swallowing harshly, he shoved the thought down. 

“What did you do?” Nicole said, but it was less of a question than it was a statement. “Oh my god, what did you do?” Her flashlight was pointed at where Jason’s body lay in a rapidly growing pool of blood, and Sam had to fight to keep his eyes from following the beam towards the evidence of what he’d just done. His heart was racing. He could feel his calm control slipping from his grasp, the fear of what was going to happen rising in the back of his throat. _I fucked up_ he thought, mind snapping back and forth between what he had just done and what would be done to him because of it. 

“Which one of you is it?” Sam said, voice harsh and unwavering, somehow managing not to give away the mess of fear and regret churning inside of him. 

“Is what?” Kyle snarled back at him, though Sam could clearly hear the tremble in his voice. 

“Which of you is the witch?” Sam asked, and Nicole let out a hysterical laugh before she too shoved her hand over her own mouth. Chrissy was now just crying, and Ryan’s eyes were wide with fear, flicking back and forth between Sam and the body. 

“You’re crazy,” Kyle said. “God, you’re crazy, you– you locked us in here, you–”

“Shut up,” Sam snapped, and Kyle’s mouth closed with an audible click as his teeth met. “I thought it was him,” Sam said, gesturing with his head towards the body _kid he was just a kid and you killed him just a kid_ , “but the bullet didn’t react, which means it's one of you instead. So, which one of you is it?” There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of crying. Sam swallowed. “Tell me, or I’ll just kill you all,” he finally said. Chrissy began crying harder, and Kyle had given up all pretense of looking anything other than terrified. 

They all looked so young, and Sam felt like he was going to vomit. None of them were saying anything, and Sam had blown his cover completely, there was no way he would be able to figure out who it was now, no spell he’d been given, nothing but the gun and the instruction to _kill the witch, and only the witch_ and he’d failed already, he’d fucked up and murdered some random kid. _You know what he’ll do if you fail,_ a dark part of his mind whispered. _I’ve already failed,_ Sam thought back, but he knew that wasn’t completely true. Killing the kid was incidental, a failure sure, but nothing compared to what would happen to him if he didn’t get the witch too, and Sam let out a long, ragged breath as he aimed the gun at Kyle’s head. 

“Fine,” Sam said, voice as hard and smooth as glass. “If you won’t tell me, I guess I’ll just shoot all of you to be sure.” He slid his finger onto the trigger, solidified his stance, and–

“Wait!” Ryan shouted, pushing his way in front of Kyle, hands raised. “It’s me, don’t kill them, it’s me. I’m the witch.” Sam looked him up and down, considering. 

“Ryan, what are you doing?” Nicole said, frantically tugging at his arm. “Don’t do this, please.” 

“He’s going to kill you dude, get _back_ ,” Kyle said, trying to push the other boy back behind him. Ryan didn’t move though, just kept his eyes on Sam, steady and unblinking. 

“I’m the witch,” he said. “My name is Rian O'Siodhachain, and I was born in Carrignavar, Ireland, 130 years ago.”

 _“What?”_ Nicole said, at almost the same time that Sam spoke:

“Prove it,” he said, then added, “slowly.” Eyes fixed on Sam, Ryan brought one of his hands in front of him, palm facing upwards, before muttering something under his breath. A small flame burst into being just above his hand, and someone behind him gasped. Ryan raised his eyes to Sam. 

“Proof enough for you?” he said, but didn’t wait for an answer, running his gaze up and down Sam. “You’re not a hunter,” he said. 

“No,” Sam said, “I’m not. Tell your friends to step away.” 

“Guys–” Ryan said, letting the flame go out as he raised the hand back up, palms towards Sam, a protective gesture so familiar it made Sam ache. 

“Ryan,” Kyle said, “you can’t… he’s going to _kill_ you.” 

“I know,” Ryan said, not taking his eyes off Sam. “But he’s not going to kill you, so please just step away.” Kyle swallowed, loud in the silence, and grabbed both of the girls, pulling them to the side, away from Ryan and Sam. There was a long moment of silence as Ryan and Sam considered each other. “Why did you think it was Jason?” Ryan asked. 

“He took something from your bag,” Sam said. Ryan frowned. 

“My bag? How would you… oh,” he said, before anger and sorrow broke over his face, one after another, mixing together into a mask of pain. “His bag was next to mine,” he spat, fury burning in every word. “He was probably getting his fucking knife so he could protect you.” Sam bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from flinching back at his words, but wasn’t able to stop his eyes from flicking over to the body lying just inside the swinging light cast by the group’s flashlights. 

“I’m sorry,” he said before his brain had a chance to catch up with his mouth. Ryan’s face twisted, and Sam felt Ryan’s magic singe along his skin like sparks from a fire, an involuntary result of the anger filling his eyes. 

“You’re _sorry?_ ” he said. “You’re–” he cut himself off, eyes going wide at something above and behind Sam’s shoulder, and Sam only had the time to half turn his head before a force slammed into his side, sending him flying across the room and into the concrete wall. He hit the ground with a heavy thud, chunks of concrete and dirt raining down around him. He could hear the distant sounds of voices, maybe one of them yelling _run_ , but it was hard to tell around the ringing in his ears, the way his entire body was throbbing in pain as his lungs desperately tried to remember how to breathe. Sam pushed himself up onto his elbows, then to his knees, his entire body screaming its disapproval. He took a single deep breath, braced on his hands and knees, body trembling, and then he shoved the pain away with the ease of long practice, locking down his senses until the physical pain barely even registered. Raising his head, he wasn’t surprised to see that the room was empty aside from Jason’s body, the other teenagers having clearly taken the opportunity to escape the basement. Sam briefly wondered if Ryan had done this, before remembering the way that he’d looked behind Sam. _Novikov_ Sam thought with a groan, staggering to his feet with the help of one hand braced against the wall. He scanned the room, but the ghost was nowhere to be seen. Sam glanced down at his watch, and fear so strong it made bile rise in his throat rolled through him. He only had half an hour remaining until sunrise and he didn’t understand how that could be, he should have had hours still, he should have– 

_Novikov,_ Sam thought again, remembering that suspended space that the ghost had held him and Jason inside. Time was far less rigid, and far more malleable, than most people thought, and Sam couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed Novikov playing with it, playing with him. He forced himself to take a staggering step away from the wall. He had to get upstairs _now_ before the teenagers could get out, before the _witch_ could escape. Years of training had ensured that he had kept his grip on his gun even while being thrown across the room like a ragdoll, so at least he still had that on him, he just had to–

A force slammed into Sam’s stomach, sending him skittering back across the room until his back once again hit the wall, driving the breath from his lungs and sending pain spiking up his back and into his skull, where it remained, pounding and inescapable. _Fuck._ Sam opened his eyes, and this time Novikov was there, floating right in front of him, a smile stretched wide across its face.

 _I told you,_ it said. _This is my domain_. Sam tried to reach for his powers, but the throbbing in his head was throwing him off, making him dizzy and unfocused. He had a concussion, he realized just in time for the same force to once again plow into him, sending him flying across the room. It wasn’t strong enough to send him into the far wall, but it was enough that when he hit the ground he felt something in his leg snap at the impact, bits of concrete and rock embedding themselves in his skin as he slid across the ground. For a long, horrible moment, the only thing Sam was aware of was the pain suffusing his entire body, and then it was pushed away, flowing out of him not because he chose to push it away but because there was no room for both it and the rage that suddenly burned through him, turning his veins black and his blood to ash as he stood up. He knew that if he looked in a mirror, his eyes would be glowing, and he turned that gaze upon where Novikov’s ghost stood in the middle of the room. He watched with satisfaction as the spectre’s eyes widened, waited just long enough to see the spiderweb lines of power light up as Novikov began to call the energy of the house, of his magic, to him before he let his power roar out of him, less a faucet turning on and more a dam breaking. His power rolled through the room, a wave of fire and blood, uncontrolled, formless, and far, far too much for a single ghost, no matter how powerful. Novikov didn’t even have the chance to scream before he was gone, his spirit ripped apart and scattered into the ether. Destroyed in the truest sense of the word, beyond the reach of either heaven or hell. Sam’s lips curled up into a satisfied smile as he strode towards the stairs. The pain of his broken leg, the concussion, was lost to the power rolling through him, and he let it boil up the stairs ahead of him, flowing through the whole house to where—

The wave of power shattered, falling to the floor and vanishing into nothing, and Sam barely managed to stagger the few final steps into the kitchen as it left him. The doors were open, and he didn’t know if it was because the sun had risen or because he’d destroyed Novikov but either way they were gone, the kids were _gone_. Fear turned his breath ragged as he limped into the front room, the pieces of broken bone in his leg grinding against each other with every step. He took in the abandoned sleeping bags, the knocked over lanterns. He didn’t pause, just kept going towards the front door. He didn’t know how long he had before the cops showed up, but he didn’t want to be anywhere near the house when they did. 

Sam realized he was shaking just as he reached the front hall, but he couldn’t tell if it was because of the growing hunger burning in his veins or the fear and pain suffusing the rest of his body. He paused, leaning against the wall for support as he struggled to breathe for a long minute before he forced himself to keep going. His mind was a mess of pain and fear and the dull static of panic, and he couldn’t seem to gain control of it long enough to disassociate from the pain radiating out from what felt like every single fibre of his being. When he opened the front door to the early morning light just cresting the horizon, Sam just stood and stared out at the spray of gravel where the teenagers’ cars had been. He wondered briefly if he should try and go after Ryan, but the chances of the witch sticking round were infinitesimally small, and the chances of him remaining unwarded and findable were even smaller. 

Sam swallowed, a harsh, horrible feeling against his dry throat. He staggered down the stairs, then turned back to the house. Its empty windows stared down at him, and Sam closed his eyes against their accusing gaze. He let the pain and anger and fear that was overwhelming him stoke his powers a final time instead, reaching out with the heat burning inside his fingers, spreading them across the house until he finally felt a floorboard catch under the press of a white hot spectral palm, flames suddenly licking up, hungry for the old and dried wood that made up the house. When Sam finally forced his eyes back open, it was to the sight of smoke beginning to climb from those same broken windows. An empty smile twisted his lips. The smell of smoke was just reaching him as he turned and headed around the side of the house. The shattered pieces of the bones in his leg continued to grind against each other as he walked, but he was finally able to push the pain away. 

After all, what was coming next was going to be much, much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again Helen for the beta, you the bessssst. 
> 
> I'v resurrected my tumblr, find me [there](https://stevesbootyshorts.tumblr.com/) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/thotlander).


	9. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2007

**Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2007**

Dean glanced around one final time before he bent to pick the lock. He only needed a couple of seconds, metal scratching against metal, until he heard a familiar click and was standing and slipping into the building. Inside was silent and dark, the space filled with that hollow feeling unique to empty buildings; a combination of instinct and experience letting him know that there was no one else there. He looked towards the back of the room but didn’t bother walking any deeper inside of the building, instead turning and walking towards the bank of candles that lay to the left of the front doors. Ignoring the matches provided, Dean took out his old silver lighter instead, rubbing his thumb over the initials carved into the side for a long minute. Shaking his head, he picked out a candle to light. The flame of the votive flickered slightly when he put it back, a single glowing point in the darkness. Dean stared at it for a long minute before closing his eyes. He still didn’t believe in God, maybe believed even less than he had before Sam disappeared, but something about doing this whenever he had a chance, lighting a candle and sending a prayer to the Virgin Mary to watch over his brother, made him feel better. Maybe just because he knew Sam had believed, that he’d smile at Dean if he was here to watch him do this. For a second Dean could swear he heard his brother’s voice echoing in his head, the happy lilt to his words, the way he’d tease Dean for this if he could see it. The pain in Dean’s chest was almost physical, and he sucked in a deep breath, eyes still closed. Letting it out slowly, he repeated the prayer a final time. Opening his eyes, he blinked down at the candle, the flame wavering in an unseen draft, reflecting off the glass column that held it, before finally turning and walking away. 

The stoup by the door was plain, but the basin was deep, the water turned silver in the scant moonlight making its way through the church’s high windows. Dean filled his flask, and then a water bottle, shoving both into the pockets of his jacket. He’d felt strange, going into churches since he’d met Castiel. He still wasn’t sure if he believed the creature when it claimed to be an angel. Fuck, even if he did believe it, he didn’t know if that claim of being that… _species_ even meant anything in relationship to the church. To the painfully human constructs of belief: division and war, death and sacrifice, supplication and absolution. It was powerful, whatever he was, and something about him haunted Dean still, making him wake, sweating and shivering, the memory of blue eyes staring into his own slipping away as his consciousness crawled back in. It had been more than seven months, but while the dreams came and went, that first one lingered, the dream that wasn’t a dream remaining as sharp as any memory. He could still remember every word Castiel had said to him, could almost recite them out loud, even when awake. The memory of the dream version of Sam haunted him too, layering over every memory he had of the kid he’d raised, like a cursed vision of a future he wasn’t even sure was real. The healed wounds on his side had been enough to convince him that Castiel, whatever he was, existed just as much in the physical realm as that dream field; so too was he convinced of the realness of the demonic dogs that had threatened him with a drawn-out and bloody death. That certainty hadn’t faded at all, some part of him beyond logic and reason and any attempts to explain away the impossible _knowing_ in a way his waking mind never could. Sam, though… he hated himself for it, but he couldn’t help but hope that that version of Sam was nothing more than a dream, a nightmarish figment of his imagination. Wasn’t it worse, if he hadn’t been? If that vision of Sam, broken and bloody and utterly alien to the boy Dean remembered, was what had become of him in the time since Dean had lost him? 

Dean shook his head, trying to clear out the threatening darkness of those memories. Whatever it had been, it hadn’t happened again since, and he had far more pressing, and present, matters to attend to. Dean slipped out the same way he’d come, locking the door behind him and heading down the sidewalk. 

The snow was dirty with the passing of cars and the general grime of the city. Packed down into ice and half-melted into puddles of slush in turn, turning every step into a treacherous gamble. Dean kept his other senses alert to his surroundings even as he kept his eyes on his feet, choosing each step with care. It wasn’t a long walk, luckily, and he only passed a handful of people on the way there. The night was too cold for many people to be outside and the bars had long since closed. The streetcar rattled past just as he crested the hill leading to his destination. He paused to watch it go by, the few passengers onboard completely lost to their own worlds, staring down at their phones or off into the distance. His breath clouded the air in front of him as he glanced up at the stars before he began walking again, passing by what had once been a garage but was now nothing more than empty rooms, visible through shattered glass windows and poorly nailed boards vainly attempting to protect it against all comers. It was only a few more minutes until he came to a stop in front of a tall rusted metal fence. Glancing around, he made sure that there was no one near enough to see him, slipping through the gate he’d already broken into earlier, locking it behind him. The path down the hill had probably been paved at some point, but the pavement had long ago been allowed to crumble away into nothing, leaving the slope to be freely gouged by deep tire treads, now filled with ice and snow. It was impossible to avoid leaving prints behind him, but there hadn’t been any other footprints in the snow when Dean had first come here, weren’t any new ones now, so he wasn’t too worried about it. He wouldn’t be here beyond tonight anyways. 

The curve of the road opened up into a large flat expanse, cracked and broken pavement stretching out in front of him. The high fence made up of sheets of rusted metal that separated the lot from the railway next to it was nothing but distant shadows in the darkness of the night. Dean knew from his earlier visit that the few smaller buildings in the distance were empty as well, nothing inside of them other than graffiti and beer bottles and shards of glass from long-broken windows. It was the taller building, the one closest to him, that he headed for now. Unlike the other buildings, filled with the detritus of years of humans stumbling in and out of their hollow shells, their doors yawning open and welcoming all comers, he had had to break into this one himself—the thing that had made up his mind to use this building over the others. He was only a few meters from the door when his foot skidded on a patch of ice. He threw out his arms, desperately trying to keep his balance, and winced in pain as the sudden movement pulled at the muscles across his shoulders. The wound was healed enough that he’d already taken the stitches out, contorting himself in a small motel bathroom to avoid a trip to a hospital. It had been a stupid injury too, rushing into a haunting, realizing too late that the spirit was far more powerful than he had accounted for. Bobby told him off for it as he’d stitched Dean up when he’d shown up at the scrapyard at three in the morning, telling him he was being reckless, careless, stupid. Nothing Dean hadn’t heard before from the old man though, and if part of him pointed out that it wasn’t only Bobby who’d been telling him that over the last couple of years, well, that was easy enough to ignore.

Still, he was more cautious as he crossed the final stretch of icy ground between him and the building. 

Inside the only illumination came from the windows—half broken and half papered over with pages of newspapers years out of date—the scarce light providing him with little in terms of visibility. Dean pulled out his flashlight before he turned towards the basement. The building had been filled with offices at some point, maybe something to do with the operation of the railway. Whatever it had been, it had long since been abandoned. Aside from a few unsettling reminders of what it had once been—a single office chair, sitting alone in a beam of moonlight; a desk, its drawers ripped half out; a filing cabinet spilling its papers across the floor, not important enough to be salvaged from the hollow corpse of the building—it was totally empty. The location made it inhospitable to the homeless, and teenagers and junkies both apparently preferred the easy access of the other buildings, because Dean hadn’t found any sign that another person had set foot inside here since it was first locked up, however many years before . Which made it ideal for his purpose. 

He made his way quickly down the stairs, the sound of his boots hitting the floor echoing up and down the tall concrete chimney of the stairwell, a hundred running footsteps rushing after him. Pushing open the door, his eyes immediately went to where he’d set up shop lights the day before, their brightness the only source of light in the otherwise pitch black space of the former parking garage. The white lines of the devil’s trap all but glowed under the force of the two lights directed at it, the slumped form of the demon in the middle of the trap a miserable, dark lump in contrast. Dean carefully stepped over the burnt remains of the summoning spell he’d used to get the demon there, ignored the dead goat lying beside it, drained of its blood, heart long since turned to ash. Water covered the last stretch of concrete between him and the trap, splashing lightly beneath his boots—his previous supply of holy water, a victim to his chase through the darkness to get the demon into the trap. The sight of it reminded him of the blow the demon had managed to land that had caused him to drop the holy water, and his hand throbbed with the remembering. He was pretty sure that nothing was broken though, so he continued to ignore it as he stepped into the warm circle cast by the shop lights. 

The demon looked up as he approached, a wide grin splitting the face of the man he was riding. He was young, whoever he had been, white with long blonde hair and a tattoo of a lion on his shoulder. Once, Dean would have wondered who he was – if he had family, if there were people missing him – but he’d become completely numb to those questions long ago. You saved who you could, and if Dean had to choose between a meatsuit and whoever they were after, he’d choose the one not occupied by a demon every time. Hazards of the job or a slippery slope to hell, whatever. Dean tried not to think about it. He needed to sleep at night, and he figured so long as his list of lives saved outnumbered the people he killed, or watched get killed, or let get killed, he wasn’t evil. In some grey area, maybe, but not evil. 

The thing now clambering back to its feet in the middle of the devil’s trap, on the other hand, was nothing but. At least Dean could comfort himself with that. 

“Winchester,” the demon said, still smiling. “I was starting to think you’d just abandoned me here, all on my lonesome.” Dean grinned back at it, sliding easily into the persona he wore whenever he had to speak to a monster. _Never let them see you’re afraid_ echoing in the back of his head, the familiar baritone of his father’s voice. _Never give them anything they can use against you._

“Brought you a present,” he said, taking the water bottle out of his pocket and swishing it back and forth. The demon looked down at it, its expression unsettlingly unperturbed. 

“What, you couldn’t just make your own?” the demon asked, looking back up at him. “What’s the matter Dean? Too much blood on your blackened soul? Not quite sure you have the juice for it?” Dean ignored the jab, at least outwardly. It’s not like he would tell a demon that the last time he’d tried to make holy water that it hadn’t worked, that he didn’t know if that meant that he’d completely given up on God or that God had given up on him. He’d never even fucking known if he believed in God, just knew that the prayers and rosaries worked and made holy water and demons screamed when you poured it on them, and that was all he had needed to know. And maybe that was the problem, really. When a man claiming to be an angel had shown up in his dreams and cracked his understanding of the world so bad he was still trying to right himself months later, faith became a far slippier thing than it had ever been before. 

_When you’ve only ever had faith, true faith, in your family, and they have all been lost to fire and retribution and the endless, lonely darkness, what’s left to hold onto?_

“You’re going to tell me what you know about my brother,” he said, and the demon threw its head back in an exaggerated laugh, designed to provoke, just as much a lie as any words it might have spoken. When it looked at Dean again, its eyes were black, and its smile seemed to have grown an impossible couple of inches wider, the thin human skin straining at the corners, the mortal flesh struggling to contain what broiled within it. 

“I don’t know anything about your brother, Dean,” it said. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Dean said, taking the cap off the water bottle. The demon glanced at it again, and this time Dean was vindictively happy to see a flash of fear, or at least dread, slide over its face. 

“Just because you managed to lose your brother doesn’t mean Hell had anything to do with it,” the demon said. Dean considered its words for a long second before dipping his fingers into the bottle, flicking them towards the demon. It was just a handful of drops, barely anything, but they were sent with a clear message: he was just getting started. The demon kept smiling at him even as the spots where the water hit it turned red, hissing as they burned, steam rising off of each one.

“I said don’t lie to me,” Dean said. “I know you have him.” It was a bluff, but Dean was a pretty good liar, a lifetime of hustling pool, shoplifting food, dodging social workers behind him. Telling Sam that everything was going to be okay, which had turned out to be the biggest lie of all. 

“Poor Dean,” the demon said, “lost your little baby brother.” Its voice was mocking, and the smile on its face had Dean fighting the urge to grind his teeth together as it spoke. “Only had one job, look after little Sammy. Couldn’t even do that right. No wonder your Daddy left you. Probably couldn’t stand to look at your face anymore, knowing what a fuckup you were.” Dean tried not to react, even as something deep in his gut twisted, the voice that lived somewhere in the back of his mind whispering at him. _It’s right,_ the voice said. _You’ve always been nothing but a fuckup._

“So you do know where my brother is,” he said instead, and the demon’s expression turned considering.

“I didn’t say that,” it said, and Dean splashed it with holy water again, more this time, enough to make its face twist in pain. “Fine, fine,” it said, laughing despite the steam still rising from its skin. “I’m not lying, though.” Dean moved to raise his arm, but the demon kept talking, forestalling the threat of any more holy water reaching its skin. “I don’t know where young Samael is,” it said. “Shifrat za-'iil is rather… precious about his favourite pet.” Dean’s stomach twisted, the taste of bile heavy on his tongue at the confirmation of the worst of his fears. 

_Hell has Sam._

It took a second for Dean to move beyond that thought, the overwhelming horror of it, to process the rest of what the demon had said. He frowned, trying to shove down the mess of fear and panic and self-hatred boiling inside of him. _Later,_ he told the voice that was screaming at him with the confirmation of just how completely he had failed his brother.

“Who is Shif– Shifre–” Dean started to ask, breaking off as he stumbled over the unfamiliar name. It wasn’t like any demon name that he’d heard before, and that was just another drop of fear to add to the growing sea inside him. The demon grinned back at him, clearly enjoying Dean’s confusion. 

“You really have no idea what’s happening do you?” it asked. Dean kept his face blank, but he couldn’t exactly counter the demon’s observation with anything concrete, and that just made it laugh again. “Oh, this is delicious,” it said. “The angel’s greatest prize and you have no clue what’s ahead.” Dean blinked, fingers unconsciously flexing on the water bottle at the demon’s reference to the angels. _Was that why Castiel was watching him? They wanted something from him?_ The demon was watching him carefully now, eyes flicking across Dean’s face, searching his reactions. 

“Why did you take Sam?” Dean finally asked, deciding not to acknowledge just how thoroughly he didn’t understand what the demon had just said to him. The demon shoved its hands in its pockets, rocking back and forth on bare feet, overly casual in a way that was obviously meant to set Dean on edge. Dean fought not to show just how much it was working.

“I told you, I didn’t,” it said. Dean gritted his teeth. 

“I didn’t mean you personally,” he snapped, and the demon laughed at the obvious telegraph of his rising frustration and fear. “Why did Hell take him? What do you want with him?” The demon shrugged. 

“We’re just helping him fulfil his destiny,” it said. “We all need to be ready for the war to come, for the Puer Regem to rise up and carve Heaven into pieces until the screams of the heavenly host makes the rivers and oceans and lakes boil dry.” Dean took a deep breath, the mess in his chest beginning to coalesce into pure anger. He was tired of being talked in circles.

“What war?” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “What destiny?” The demon shook its head. 

“Now now,” it said, face twisting into a mocking expression of disapproval. “Where’s the fun in me spoiling the surprise? You’ll find out soon enough. After all, it’s been written since the beginning of time: ferrum ferro ab utero bestiae viscera Mariae ducam plaga mundus ardebit cum eis.” It grinned at him then, an expression so full of genuine happiness that it made Dean’s skin crawl even as he tried desperately to pull every Latin lesson Bobby had ever given him forward from the depths of his mind. Sam had always been better of the two of them at dead languages though; Dean far better at the living ones. _Something about iron… and a womb… the Virgin Mary?_ The words were already slipping from his mind even as he desperately tried to hold onto them. The demon, watching his face carefully, smiled, like it could see into Dean’s mind, like it knew that Dean didn’t know what it had just said to him. 

“It’s okay,” it mocked. “Let’s try this one then: et ecce equus pallidus et qui sedebat desuper nomen illi Mors et inferus sequebatur eum.” 

_Sam, the leather-bound copy of the vulgate that Bobby had gotten him for his tenth birthday dwarfing him where it sat open on his lap as he read aloud to Dean, translating it to his older brother as he went. They’d been in the middle of a thirty hour drive from a hunt in Nááts'įhch'oh down to Seattle, passing through the Rocky Mountains, and Sam was working his way through Revelations, his pre-teen mind completely fixated on the descriptions of the end of the world. “Dean,” he’d said, “Dean, are you listening? Revelations 6:8–_

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him,” Dean said in a rush of memory, before his mind snapped forward to another memory, far more recent: 

_A world on fire, endless screams and death, broken bodies across a broken landscape. The shadowed outline of a man, his golden crown the only light in the darkness as he watches over his kingdom of blood and bone. The man turned, what should have been familiar brown eyes tainted black, staring out at him from a face flecked with ash and blood._

_Sammy._

Dean shook his head, trying to banish the memory of that months-old dream, determinately ignoring the whispered correction of _vision_ that stole through his mind. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he said, “but you’re going to tell me how I can find my brother.” He splashed the demon again, uncaring of the amount this time, watching with an ugly sense of satisfaction as the water covered its face and chest, making the demon scream. He couldn’t help but smile at its obvious pain, at the way it desperately panted for breath as the air between them slowly cleared of the steam coming off of its meatsuit. The demon snarled at him, it’s face finally contorting into an expression as monstrous as the thing inside of it. 

“I will not,” it said. “There is nothing that you could do to me, _human,_ that could possibly compare to what Shifrat za-'iil would do to me if I were to spoil his game.” Dean didn’t say anything else, just emptied the rest of the water bottle on the demon, making it scream in pain, the sound echoing, like there was an entire host inside it’s chest, all crying out in agony at once. Its eyes, when it opened them again, were filled with hatred as it panted, staring into Dean’s eyes. 

“Do what you will to me, hunter,” it said. “It will not change the fact that your precious little brother is already damned. There is nothing that you can do to save him, or to stop what has already begun. The angels are too stupid to realize that they have already lost, and you will be dragged screaming and dying to the pit, where you belong. You can feel it already, can’t you, Dean? The damnation licking at the edges of your soul, your humanity slipping away as you hunt for what has already died, what is already beyond all hope of salvation. When we get to that final bloody day, when Hell rises triumphant and free, the Sword will already be nothing but ash, and heaven will need to find another weapon to wage their doomed war.” The demon’s rage was clear, its voice transformed into a buzzing, inhuman noise, words layering under and over each other as it glared at Dean. He had to fight not to flinch away, the demon’s words pouring out of it without pause like an endless, burning stream, each one landing on Dean’s ears with a weight that spoke of prognostication: a certainty that belonged only to zealots and prophets. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, each word striking something deep inside of him, like a single chord on some impossibly large string, echoing and reverberating through his bones, making him shake as he stared back at a face warped with fury. He still didn’t understand, didn’t know what the demon was talking about, but it felt true in a way that made his mouth dry, his breath shaky and unsteady. 

“Fine,” Dean finally spat out, trying to ignore the way the word trembled in the air between them. “If you won’t tell me anything, I’ll just find someone else who will.” The demon’s eyes were still narrowed, fixed unerringly on Dean’s face even as he pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, Bobby’s writing swimming in front of his eyes for a long second before he forced himself to focus.Taking a deep breath, he began to read: 

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica,” he said, taking a bitter satisfaction from the way the demon began to shake, the strange, sibilant noise of its anger getting louder and louder, though they were now accompanied by hurt exhalations of pain. “Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te... cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionìs,” he continued. From the corner of his eye, the demon abruptly stilled. Dean looked up before he could think better of it to see the demon looking down at something on the floor, a slowly widening smile splitting its face in two. Dean’s gaze followed its own, and he only had half a second to register the swirl of chalk mixing with spilled holy water at the edge of the devil’s trap before an invisible force was slamming into him, sending him flying backwards until he crashed into one of the concrete pillars holding up the ceiling. His entire body screamed with pain as that same invisible force kept him in place. Only managing to keep his eyes open through sheer force of will, Dean watched as what remained of the devil’s trap flamed out of existence as the demon stepped through it like it was nothing, like it had never been there at all. 

“On the other hand,” the demon said, voice conversational as it walked towards him, hands once again shoved in its pockets like it was nothing, pace leisurely and unconcerned. “I guess it also works if I kill you right now.” Dean fought against the force holding him in place, but as hard as he tried, muscles straining and breath stuttering with effort, he couldn’t so much as move a finger. He was completely helpless, couldn’t do anything but watch, fear screaming through his brain, as the demon drew closer and closer. 

“That was a dirty trick you pulled earlier,” the demon continued. “Tricking me into the trap like that.” It tutted, its grin gleeful in a way it hadn’t been before, not even when it had been taunting him about Sam. “You were probably just afraid that you couldn’t take me in a fair fight, right?” It reached out towards him, and Dean couldn’t even flinch away from its touch as it ran its fingers down the side of his face, eyes gentle and searching as it stared into Dean’s. It leaned in, its breath hot against Dean’s cheek as its mouth brushed against Dean’s ear. 

“You were right,” it said, and all at once the pressure keeping Dean pinned in place like a bug disappeared. He didn’t get the chance to fall, the demon twisting its hand in the front of his shirt before he could slip further than a foot. Dean blinked, and the clenched fist of the demon’s other hand slammed into his face, sending his head whipping to the side, smashing into the concrete pillar. He watched through a daze as blood sprayed out of his mouth and across the shadowed surface. One hand reaching clumsily towards the gun at his back, he began to turn back to face the demon. Before he could manage to complete either motion, that same fist was slamming back into his face, and Dean felt his cheekbone crumple even as his head once again bounced off the concrete. He could feel blood running down his face but it was distant to the ringing in his ears as he fought to keep out the blackness threatening at the edge of his vision. He reached again for his gun, though he felt like he barely had control over any of his limbs, his body distant and disconnected from his brain. The demon batted his hand away like it was nothing. 

Without warning, it let go of his shirt. Dean fell to his knees. He sucked in a single, desperate breath, before a foot was smashing into his side. He felt something in his chest rupture as the crack of his ribs snapping one after another echoed through the room. He let the momentum of the kick send him rolling, desperate to get some space between them. To buy himself even a second to try and recover, to fight back. Through eyes quickly swelling shut, he watched as bare feet padded across concrete towards him. He opened his mouth, trying to get out the next words of the exorcism, but his mouth felt like it was full of rocks, tongue clumsy and thick, air barely stuttering in and out of his lungs. All that came out was a pained sort of gasp, wet in a way that Dean knew meant at least one of his lungs was already filling with blood. Dean tried to reach for his knife instead, useless as it was, movements sluggish with pain. The demon’s steps paused. Dean could hear it laugh, far above him, impossibly distant through the ringing in his ears. After a second, it took a single step closer and stomped down on Dean’s femur. The sound of it shattering was loud, almost louder than the thick, wet noise that was all that Dean could force from his mouth; a muffled mockery of a scream. 

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” it said, nudging at the freshly broken bone with one of its feet. “This is just sad. Don’t you realize you’re already dead?” Dean finally got his knife free of the sheath, his hand shaking with pain and blood loss. The demon kicked it out of Dean’s hand, uncaring of the way that it sliced deep into its foot as it did, seeming not to notice as something in Dean’s hand snapped. With that same foot, the demon nudged at Dean’s side, forcing another choked noise from his broken lungs. Pain rocketed through his body, so fast and sharp he couldn’t think through it, couldn’t do anything but try and blink back the darkness encroaching on his vision. He watched, helpless, as the demon stepped over him, planting one of its feet beside each of Dean’s hips. It stared down at him, a horrible mockery of a grin on its face. 

“Honestly, I should be thanking you,” it said, “it’s truly an honour,” it continued as it crouched down, “to be the one to drag your soul to Hell.” It reached out, running its hand gently down the side of Dean’s face, mimicking its earlier gesture, though this time the soft touch sent pain spiking through Dean’s head as its fingers traversed shattered bone and flesh. The black spots were blooming larger in his vision, but Dean refused to give into it, refused to do anything but glare up at the demon. If this was how he went out, he was doing it with as much fight, as much defiance, as he could muster. The demon laughed, reaching out to pick up Dean’s knife, and Dean heard a distant sound, like a flock of birds taking flight. 

_How did birds get down here,_ he thought.

“Dean!” someone shouted. A deep, rough voice, familiar in a way he couldn’t place, cracking through the air, forcing his brain back from the black brink it had been hovering on. Dean didn’t think, couldn’t think around the pain suffusing his body and mind, but it didn’t matter because some part of him beyond pain, beyond thought, stretched out a hand on instinct, fingers opening in an act of blind faith. 

Cold metal hit his palm, and Dean pulled all the strength remaining in his body into his arm, forcing his fingers to curl around whatever had been tossed to him. Acting on nothing but a foundationless, inexplicable trust, he used gravity and what was left of his strength to bring his hand down, slamming whatever it was into the side of the demon. The movement didn’t have enough strength behind it, shouldn’t have managed to damage the demon at all, even if it was capable of being harmed by mortal weapons, but whatever it was slid inside the demon without resistance. Dean’s eyes were just open enough to watch its eyes, turned towards whoever had yelled Dean’s name, crackle through with red lightning, watched as it traveled across its entire face, down under the collar of its shirt and then across its arms. When the lightning had faded completely, the demon slowly slumped to the side, falling off of Dean, limp like it was somehow _dead._

The black was spreading further and further across his sight, the ceiling far above him becoming blurry and indistinct. He could just barely hear footsteps, remote and echoing, all but drowned out by the buzzing in his ears. The pain that had been filling his body was becoming more and more distant, seeping away. His breath was coming out in little shuddery pants, and he was absently aware of the fact that it didn’t sound like it should, that it wasn’t enough air, that it was slowing, that it wa–

 _Pain,_ sharp and immediate and shocking through him. Dean’s eyes flew open, the ceiling abruptly coalescing above him. Almost as soon as the pain crashed over him, liquid warmth replaced it, his brain struggling to make sense of the sensation – _blood, rushing through veins that had begun to turn desiccated and cold_ – and then, just as quickly as it had started, it ended. He blinked up at the cement of the ceiling, his brain fighting with the sudden lack of pain just as much as it had been fighting to think through it. He could open his eyes completely, he realized, and his breaths were no longer wet and shrinking. He blinked again, and a face came into view, familiar blue eyes the first thing to narrow into focus, and Dean realized where he had heard that voice before. 

“Castiel,” he said, the name coming out slow and shocky. 

“Dean,” the angel said, voice serious. “Can you stand?” Dean pushed himself up, grimacing when he realized the demon was still lying slumped over, half on top of him. He kicked it away, stumbling to his feet and frowning down at the body when it didn’t move. 

“It’s dead,” he said, feeling slow and stupid, like he was still thinking at half-speed. 

“Yes,” Castiel said. “You killed it.” Dean blinked at him again, before a glint of silver caught his attention, a small reflection of the distant lights still glowing from across the garage. From this distance, they were just enough to see by, casting long, dark shadows wherever they didn’t reach. He looked down to see that Castiel was holding a long silver blade, oddly circular and wickedly sharp. 

“Is that… what is that?” he asked. Castiel looked strangely… embarrassed? as he looked away from Dean. 

“It is an angel blade,” he said. 

“Is that… you gave me that?” Dean asked. “It can kill demons?”

“Yes,” Castiel responded, still avoiding looking at Dean. 

“Huh,” Dean said, deciding to put that in the pile of things to think more about later. “Okay, well. Thanks, I guess. For saving me. Again.” Castiel didn’t move, but somehow managed to look even more uncomfortable. 

“It is my mission,” he said, and Dean frowned at him. 

“What?” he asked. “What does that mean?” Castiel finally looked at him again, head tilting in that way that was quickly becoming familiar, looking at him for so long that Dean found himself shifting uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze. 

“You don’t think you deserve to be saved,” Castiel finally said, voice wondering, which didn’t really answer Dean’s question.

“Why’d you do it?” he asked. 

“Because God commanded it,” Castiel said, voicing ringing with something new, something profound and terrible. “Because we have work for you.” Dean felt something drop in his stomach, the demon’s earlier words echoing in his head. _The angel’s greatest prize,_ it had said. He opened his mouth, questions crowding his mouth, fighting to be the first one to escape, but before he could say anything the angel’s head abruptly turned, as if he was listening to something that Dean couldn’t hear. 

“We need to go,” he said.

“Why, wh–” Dean started, but that was all he got out before Castiel turned back to him and put his hand on his shoulder. 

Dean blinked, and they were inside his hotel room. He jerked himself free of Castiel’s unresisting grip, running towards the bathroom, barely managing to lift the lid of the toilet before he was collapsing to his knees in front of it and throwing up. His muscles were clenching weirdly, his entire body shivering, and he couldn’t think around the unfamiliar sensations taking over his body even as his stomach forced out everything he’d eaten that day. 

He stayed on his knees even after it stopped, after the last shiver left his body, his forehead against the porcelain rim as he focused on his breathing, trying to find some way to steady himself against everything that had just happened. Finally he forced himself up, flushing the toilet and slowly making his way over to the sink, rinsing his mouth out before he took a deep breath and turned, walking back out into the room. Castiel was still standing there, which wasn’t a surprise, though Dean didn’t think he would have been surprised if the angel had disappeared either. 

“What happened back there?” Dean asked as Castiel turned his gaze away from the ugly landscape painting hanging above the bed to meet Dean’s eyes. 

“You killed a demon,” Castiel said, which absolutely didn’t answer Dean’s question. Castiel knew it too—though his expression remained blank, flat, Dean was certain that the angel was, on some strange metaphysical plane of existence, shifting guiltily. Dean decided to let it go. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of other questions for the angel.

“How did you know where I was?” he tried. “That I was in… that I needed… what was happening?” Castiel frowned at him. 

“I told you,” he said. “I am attuned to your soul.” 

“Right,” Dean said. “Because you’re an angel?” Castiel cocked his head to the side. 

“You still don’t believe me?” he asked, and Dean shook his head. 

“Oh no, I’m all on board for that now, you’re an angel of the Lord, sure, whatever. Why the fuck are you attuned to my soul? What do you mean that you’ve been commanded to save me?” Castiel stared back at him but didn’t speak, the silence stretching on for so long that Dean was certain that he wasn’t going to answer at all. He was trying to figure out what question to try throwing at the reticent angel next when Castiel finally broke the silence stretching between them. 

“You should be more careful,” he said, and Dean’s hands flexed at his sides. 

“That doesn’t–” he started, but Castiel interrupted him, voice strangely powerful for all that he didn’t raise it any louder than Dean’s own voice, any louder than he’d spoken before. 

“If you need help,” he said, “pray for me. I will find you.” 

“Wh–” Dean started, but with a rustle of feathers, Castiel was once again gone. Dean stood staring at the spot where he’d just been for a long time. 

“What the _fuck_ ,” he finally said, but there was no one there to answer him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Helen for editing!!


	10. Ab inferis excitandus, 2003

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: attempted suicide, graphic descriptions of violence

**Ab inferis excitandus, 2003**

Sam was alone, walking through the darkness. 

It was peaceful. A minute of silence, a minute away from everything. Just the sound of his own feet brushing against the ground, the occasional rock skittering off into the shadows. The ground was hard and hot under his bare feet, but not painfully so. He kept his breathing shallow, as quiet as he could. He was listening as he went, focused on the darkness around him, alert and waiting. Hoping. Despite how carefully he was listening, when it came, he still managed to take a couple more steps before his brain registered what he’d just heard. A sound so quiet that if he hadn’t been aching for it, straining with every part of him, he might have easily missed it. He swallowed, turning slowly, scanning the shadow-thick darkness of the cavern for—

_ There. _

Another tap of claws hitting stone. The shift of fur passing through air. The faint, wet sounds of breathing, air rattling in and out of an open maw. He swallowed, eyes scanning the darkness. There was barely any light here, deep within the pit. Just the faintest red glow through the distant archways from which he could catch the faraway sounds of laughter and screams, echoing and reverberating through the huge, empty space to where he was standing still, as still as he could make himself be. It was difficult to separate it, to focus only on that sound that he could still just barely make out, teasing the edges of what he could hear. 

It was getting closer. 

Sam’s throat was so dry it clicked when he tried to swallow, and he felt like his bones were humming with tension as he rotated, still trying to see through the darkness. Searching for any sign of white teeth, black fur, the catch of distant light outlining the monstrous form he knew was here somewhere, knew was watching him. Waiting. Taunting. 

When he finally saw it, it was because of its eyes. 

Two red orbs, huge and almost at the same height as his chest. There was no pupil to interrupt the eddying flow of blood within them, the flicker of distant light reflecting doubly red. Sam watched its approach, the sounds he’d just barely managed to snatch from the darkness seeming to pound in his ears now that he could see it, getting louder and louder as it drew closer and closer. More of it emerged from the darkness as it did: long nails, as big as railroad spikes and twice as sharp. Black fur, so black it blended with the shadows around it, making it seem bigger than it was, impossibly huge, formed from the darkness itself. Night made flesh, with a double row of teeth like a shark, long and jagged and slick with saliva. It was almost completely silent as it moved: the whisper-soft sound of its footsteps that had first caught Sam’s attention, the ghostly in and out of its lungs inflating and deflating, the sharp huff of it taking in Sam’s scent. It would never forget it now that it had it, would always be able to find Sam, wherever he went. Sam sucked in a sharp, ragged breath of his own, refusing to look away from the creature whose eyes were locked on him. Refusing to blink, Sam’s gaze was a challenge that he dared it to take. 

The growl started as a low buzzing, like distant insects or the grind of a saw eating its way through some ancient tree. Sam felt it as much as he heard it, shivering along his arms and pricking at the hair there, making it stand on end. It grew in volume as the creature continued to draw nearer, low and sharp and rough, layering over itself impossibly until it sounded like there was far more than a single monster there with him, like he was in a cave surrounded by thousands of them. Sam’s muscles tensed the nearer it drew, coiling tighter and tighter with fear despite his best efforts to keep himself relaxed. He kept his eyes locked on it though, blinking as little as he could manage. The creature kept its eyes on him in turn, never looking away from Sam, from its prey. The thought tugged at the corner of Sam’s mouth, and he had to fight the slightly hysterical urge to laugh as he constructed his body into a threat, drawing himself up tall, rolling his shoulders forward. 

When it struck, it was without warning: one second still inching forward with a coiled grace, without pause but also so slowly that Sam could feel the anticipation of each step building in his stomach, in his veins. Fear compounding upon itself with each slow, lithe shift of muscle under fur. And then, between one breath and the next, it was moving with a speed almost impossible to track, blurring through the darkness, a killing shadow tearing towards Sam, pulling the darkness down upon him. 

Sam didn’t move, didn’t flinch, but he wasn’t able to stop the scream that ripped from his throat when its teeth sank into his shoulder. He pushed at its muzzle with his right hand as it sank its teeth deeper into his shoulder, shaking him slightly. One large eye stared at him from less than a foot away, a swirling void of anger and hunger. Sam bared his teeth back at it in defiance of the pain surging through him. The rush of blood escaping from his arm was dizzying, and only got worse when the hellhound used the grip it had on his shoulder to toss him like he weighed nothing, sending him tumbling to the ground, rolling over and over again until the rush of momentum finally succumbed to the pull of inertia, and he was still again. He could hear his heartbeat but little else, face down on the ground, nose full of the sulfur-sweet scent of dirt and the iron tang of his own blood on his tongue. The hot liquid pooled beneath his wrecked shoulder, turning dust to mud. Sam took a breath, and then another before he felt like he could move without passing out from the pain. He propped himself up with his good arm, and his vision wavered, then steadied, the world in front of him solidifying into the same mess of shadows he’d been staring into before. For a long, sick, fearful moment, he couldn’t see the hound. 

Through the darkness, a sound: thick and liquid. Dripping down onto the ground. Sam’s eyes slid in the direction of the noise. There was nothing there, and then there was, the hound coalescing out of the darkness like Sam’s gaze had summoned it back from the void it was a part of. It was difficult to see anything, but the shiny wetness covering its muzzle managed to catch the light anyways, glowing crimson. Sam’s blood, dripping to the ground, irregular and stuttering as the beast stalked slowly forward, just as slowly as it had before. Patient and confident in the inevitability of Sam’s demise. 

Sam took a deep breath, fighting to push himself up into a sitting position, shuffling onto his knees with his left arm hanging down limply, useless and slick with blood. He looked at it, a helpless nausea twisting through his stomach at the sight of the ground meat that his shoulder had become, a pulpy and unrecognizable mess of blood and muscle and the white flash of bone. His entire arm was gloved in the red of his blood. As he watched, his fingers twitched. He couldn’t feel it, but he didn’t know if that was because he couldn’t feel anything past the screaming pain of his shoulder or if it was because the hound had severed something vital and connecting when it had ripped into him. He couldn’t help the small, happy smile that crept across his face as he looked down at it, though it quickly twisted into a grimace of pain as he forced himself to stand, using his good hand as leverage to push himself, stumbling and stuttering, to his feet. He swayed slightly, unable to convince his body to stand up completely, his entire torso listing towards his injured shoulder. If he’d thought it had hurt before, it was nothing to the pain tearing through him as the destroyed joint was forced to take the full dead weight of his arm. Another laugh threatened to slide from his mouth but he forced it down, searching the darkness instead for the monster’s eyes. 

It was closer now, its gaze steady on him, fixed on his face. Sam bared his teeth again, half grimace and half smile, still fighting his body to try and straighten up completely. His feet shuffled across the ground, unsteady and wavering as his spine attempted to unbend. Waves of hot and cold rolled through him, his body protesting everything that had been done to it, everything that he was trying to get it to do. He almost fell when his foot pressed into the smeared mix of dust and blood that marked where he’d landed, slick and clinging and making him tilt precariously before he was able to regain his balance. He never broke eye contact. A lifetime of knowledge about how not to antagonize predators when you were injured and helpless turned on its head.  _ What would Dad say,  _ he thought, managing again to choke down a laugh, but letting out a small, strangled noise anyways. Pain and blood loss was making Sam’s head swim, worse and worse the longer he stayed swaying on his feet. He tried to breath through it, keep his eyes fixed on the eyes inching closer and closer to him through the dark, but it felt like his eyelids were made of cement, dragging downwards. 

He didn’t know if he blinked, or if it was just another instance of the hellhound moving faster than the eye could track, faster than prayer, faster than any hope of escape or fear of being caught. It was still meters away, and then it wasn’t, was a meter away, was a foot away, was upon him, its jaws closing on his side. A scream tore its way out of Sam’s throat, raw and helpless, joining the distant harmonies of other voices pitching their anguish out into the darkness. The creature’s teeth dug deep into his flesh, and for a second Sam could have sworn that he felt each row as an individual burning line. Then his ribs began to snap under the force of its jaws squeezing down on him. One, two, three, and Sam could hear the sound of his breathing change, the familiar burble of a lung being punctured and collapsing, the wet rush of his other organs sliding into the newly vacated space. The strange, alien sensation of organs moving to places they had never been intended to occupy. It turned his scream into a pitiful, strangled thing, helpless and airless and thick with fear. The hound tugged him downwards, bending him backwards as it gripped him tight with his teeth. When it shook its head, tossing Sam back and forth like a rag doll, Sam screamed again, feeling the wet slide of saliva and blood escaping his mouth, streaking down his face.

He was overwhelmed with the cries of every nerve in his body, every inch of his skin, every beat of his heart. It was all he could do to keep himself conscious as his torso was gored deeper and deeper with each jerk of the hound’s head, each lurching movement of his failing body. Sam felt his muscles snap, tear, flesh shearing away. Between one second and the next he was suspended, he was severed, he was falling. The feeling that rocked through his body as he hit the ground was like nothing he’d ever felt. His breath was coming in pathetic, hitched wet little gasps. He couldn’t do anything but lie there, head turned towards where the hound now stood. It was close enough that the shadows weren’t able to reach out and pull it into its depths. Instead, Sam watched as the creature dropped the chunk of Sam’s side that it had torn from him to the ground, placing one massive paw atop it to hold it in place as it ripped off a portion and began to chew. 

For a long minute, all Sam could think about was how soon that would be all of him; mind, body, and soul all torn into bite-sized pieces and swallowed down to sink and dissolve in acid. The hound ignored him, its jaws working at the flesh being crushed and torn between rows of teeth. It swallowed and huffed, dropping to nose at the piece of him still laying on the ground. It ripped off another piece, and Sam abruptly realized that that might be all it would take from the protocorpse that he was still trapped within.  _ Fuck,  _ Sam thought as he watched the creature raise its head to look off into the distance as if it was considering walking away, bored with a chewtoy that could no longer put up any sort of fight. 

_ No.  _

“No,” Sam tried to say, but it came out as little more than a thin line of blood and bile leaking from the corner of his mouth, a ghost of a word whispering out of his damaged throat and lungs. He told his arms to move, to do something, but his body no longer felt like his own: an unresponsive mess of meat and bone and frayed nerve endings, some sparking with pain, some already numb with the encroaching darkness. It wasn’t like the hellhound walking away would make a difference at this point. He could feel the wet spread of the pool of his own blood that he was lying in, hot and tacky. Could feel the way that numbness was beginning to spread through his body, replacing the pain. He was dying. 

But he wasn’t dead. 

He tried to move again, but the most he could do was twitch his fingers, a nothing movement that didn’t make the hound so much as glance at him, bending to tear another piece from the meat it held trapped against the ground instead. Another breath, another attempt to speak: just as ineffective as the last, if not even more so, nothing but a whimper barely louder than the strained, wet noises his single working lung was already making. There was no way that he’d be able to tear any real noise from his bruised throat, the ruined mess of his lungs. It would have to be movement, and Sam returned his attention to his hand, vision narrowing in on where his arm was splayed across the ground in front of him. It was dark with blood, both fresh and old, mixed with dirt, and he knew it was still there more by sight than feel. He no longer had a clear idea of what was happening, pain and numbness switching places in his awareness so quickly he could barely keep up. His fingers twitched once, twice, before Sam finally  _ pushed _ , shoving everything he had into it. Through luck or will or power, his hand raised enough to slap back onto the ground. The noise it made was wet, and Sam did it again, before moving his eyes back towards the hellhound. The monster was looking back at him, meat and darkness both dismissed in favour of the very much still alive prey lying on the floor in front of it. Sam met its eyes: defiant, pleading. Shadowed brown locked with twisting red. Finally, the hound’s lip curled slowly upwards, revealing the full length of its teeth, twice as sharp as any wolf’s and as long as any of Sam’s fingers. Sam’s stomach rebelled against the sight of chunks of his muscle and flesh caught between them. 

_ Come on _ , Sam thought.  _ Come on, come on. _ A second passed, then two, and Sam wondered if he should just give up, resign himself to whatever might happen next, put his future into the capricious hands of fate rather than clutching it tightly to his own chest. He didn’t take his gaze off of the monster’s though, and then finally,  _ finally,  _ it took a step towards Sam. 

_ Yes. _

Another step, and Sam slapped the ground again, as hard as he could, fighting against the pain threatening to black out his vision. 

_ Please. _

Another step.

Sam took a small, pained breath, summoning every single bit of strength in his body, channeling it all down to his legs. One didn’t move, didn’t do anything, and he only knew it was still there because he hadn’t seen the monster rip it off of him; he couldn’t feel it at all. With a wave of dizzying pain accompanying the movement, he dragged the other up to plant it firmly against the ground. He pushed, the wet slick of his blood easing the way as he slid. He barely moved, maybe a foot or two, too weak to do anything else, but it was enough. The noise the hellhound let out was enough to freeze what little blood remained in his veins, so low he felt it as much as he heard it, the grinding vibration of it sliding through the ground and the air, slipping under his skin to crawl its way up his bones. A growl like ice cracking, deep and echoing. Fading. The pain of forcing himself to move, the energy it had taken, gripped his mind and began to pull him headlong into the void, rushing towards darkness as his eyes slid shut and–

Sam’s throat tore in a soundless scream, blood spraying hot and wet across his cheeks as he arced helplessly upwards, a horrible, wet exhalation the only noise that managed to escape him. Frantic eyes flicked downwards, and he saw that the hellhound had closed its jaws around and over the curve of his hip, teeth sinking deep into his muscles. When it jerked back, Sam’s body curled inwards, instinct beyond pain making him move, making his tortured and exhausted limbs try to do something about the monster tearing into him. More blood slid across his face as a horribly airless exhaulation struggled free of his throat. There was nothing he could do, no fight left in him other than the helpless convulsions of a body tumbling closer and closer to death. With the entirety of Sam’s ilium trapped behind the double row of its teeth, the hellhound couldn’t tear off a chunk off of him like it had with his side, and another choked and mindless noise escaped Sam’s mouth as it instead began to grind its teeth further downward, grating against bone as it jerked back again and again, threatening to snap his pelvis in two.

It hurt beyond comprehension, and yet as the hellhound’s jaw worked to grind its teeth straight through Sam’s bones, it began to fade. The few, spasming movements had been all his body had left to offer up at the altar of his broken and bloody end, the last pathetic sacrifice of a pathetic life; unwitnessed and unremarkable. It was satisfying, to watch the darkness once again begin to bloom across his vision, hardly noticeable against the dark smear of the distant cavern ceiling. Sam wanted to smile, tried to smile, but he couldn’t tell if he managed it. Couldn’t feel much of anything anymore, though he was distantly aware of the way that the hound was still attempting to rip him in two, the view above him periodically jerking and shaking as he drifted towards a place without pain or sensation. The shadows around them were reaching inwards again but this time it was not to wrap the hellhound back into their embrace. This time, they reached for Sam. To take him to safety, to pull him deep within their inky folds. He couldn’t tell if he had his eyes open or shut anymore, couldn’t be sure he even had eyes, had ever had them. And then

there 

was 

  
  
  
  
  
  


He woke with a scream. 

The sound had begun in unconsciousness, dragging him out of the darkness, echoing through his ears as he was thrust back into wakefulness. The soreness of his throat and the emptiness of his lungs were the only real proof the sound had come from him, its last echoes already beginning to fade as he stumbled back into being. There was a long, horrible moment of disorientation, where he had no idea where he was, how he’d ended up there, a blank nothingness in his head where his last memories should have been. His eyes were wide open, but there was nothing above him, just a dark smear. He scrambled upright, stumbling off of the platform he’d been lying on and ending up crouched low to the ground as memories finally began to resurface: teeth, blood, dust, darkness. He held his hands in front of him, defensive and confused as he backed up, knocking over unidentifiable objects that made heavy, dull thudding noises as they hit the ground. Finally he felt something hard against his back and stopped there, pressing himself as tight against the solid surface as he could. His vision was blurry, the space he was in nothing more than indistinct shapes, but the red and yellow glow flickering over it was far too familiar, and Sam’s stomach sunk in recognition. 

_ No.  _

His ragged breathing was almost loud enough to drown out the crackling flames and distant screams; sounds as familiar to Sam at this point as the panicked beating of his heart. He swallowed, a harsh drag against his dry throat, eyes flicking desperately around him. He saw nothing, just the vague blurry outline of oddly shaped piles and objects he couldn’t quite identify, existing only in the stark contrast between the distant burning light and the impenetrable darkness of shadows untouched by any illumination. There was nothing there, and then one of the shadows detached itself from the wall. Sam sucked in a splintered, shocked gasp as it moved closer to him. He couldn’t tell if it was a monster or a man. Or even nothing more than a shadow, flitting through the room, unmoored and insubstantial. He didn’t bother to move, hands still held out in front of him, palms forward. Not because he thought he could actually do anything with them, but for the simple comfort of being able to tell himself he’d done something. 

The dark shape came to a stop a few meters away from him. Sam had the sense that it was staring at him. It stood for a long, drawn out minute, before finally bending to sit on a platform – the same one that Sam had fallen from when he’d come stumbling back into consciousness. The room had begun to coalesce into hatefully familiar dimensions, and Sam wished that his vision had just stayed blurry, had spared him the confirmation of his failure as he blinked the confines of the room into existence. 

It wasn’t quite a cell, but not quite  _ not _ one either. It was never locked, though Sam wondered if that might change now. The only things inside it were a high stone ledge, covered by a thin, blood-stained mattress and a motley collection of blankets and pillows, and, scattered across the floor, piles of books. Etruscan, Akkadian, Hittite, Avestan, Coptic; all crammed together in an order that only made sense to Sam, clustered by subject matter or author or time period or some strange compulsion that overtook him and had Sam stacking the Enūma Eliš next to the Visperad, shoving the Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis between the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and the Shūjīng. They were bound, mostly, some in what Sam was horribly aware was leather made from human skin, but some were written on sheets of parchment, swaths of linen, stone tablets. His own notes were scattered amongst them, roughly crumpled into corners, shoved between pages at random, hidden beneath his mattress. He tried not to look at them. The fact that he didn’t remember writing most of them was almost as uncomfortable as trying to decipher the delirious mix of languages and subjects that they were composed of. He’d found a half-written curse once, long viscous lines of black ink over a sheet of white paper, and his stomach turned over when he realized what it would do. He’d stopped trying to read them after that. There were candles scattered among the books, some melted onto the spines they were sat upon, but none of them were lit, and the only illumination came from the single entrance to the room, a wide archway through which the flickering light crawled. 

The shadow shifting drew Sam’s attention back to it, a startling reminder that he wasn’t actually alone. He looked into the darkness, and wasn’t surprised to see two glowing yellow eyes staring back at him. 

Azazel wore the darkness like it was a part of him, curving around his jaw, sliding down his throat, dancing against the edges of the light cast by distant flames. When he saw Sam’s eyes finally focus on him, he smiled, a wide and genuine expression of happiness that sent shivers wracking through Sam’s body. Fear had risen, tight and hot, to choke his throat, and he had to fight the instinctive urge to curl up into a ball, like a child, like that would somehow protect him from whatever was going to happen next. Instead, he forced himself to meet Azazel’s gaze. The curving movement of yellow and gold eddys through Azazel’s eyes was so similar to how hellhounds’ eyes flowed with blood that Sam instinctively reached a hand to his side, pressing against the place where he’d watched the hound rip a hole into him. Azazel’s gaze followed the motion, and his smile didn’t waver when he looked back at Sam. 

“Merihem patched you up,” he said. “I would have left them to heal on their own but you know her. Always was a soft touch.” 

Sam couldn’t stop the slightly hysterical laugh that choked out of him at the thought of anyone ever describing Merihem as  _ soft.  _ He sat up, leaning away from the wall at his back to pull off his shirt before twisting to look at his shoulder and side. He almost gagged at the sight of the scars. Deep, torn punctures marred his shoulder, a double, curving row on each side, but those were nothing compared to the scar on his ribs, white and massive and indented so deep you could almost see each individual band of epimysium surrounding his muscles. The edges were ragged, a white tear that began at the level of the rest of his skin before plunging down like the drop-off in an ocean; a topographical map of pain. Swallowing back the nausea clenching his stomach, Sam raised his hips enough to tug down his pants, revealing another bite mark, almost a perfect match for the one encasing his shoulder, a jagged backwards tear where the hound had tried to crack him in two. Sam eased his pants back up but didn’t bother with his shirt, forcing himself to look back up at Azazel, once again meeting those familiar yellow eyes with his own. 

“I’ll give you this, Sam,” Azazel said, stretching out his legs and bracing himself on Sam’s bed, a languid motion that made Sam’s fingers involuntarily flex against the ground. He tilted his head back, looking up at the ceiling as he continued to speak. “That was creative. Wouldn’t have guessed you had the guts for it either.” Azazel shook his head, sucking at his teeth. “Hellhound. Pretty awful way to go,” he said, tilting his chin back down to meet Sam’s eyes with his own. “But I suppose you like awful things, don’t you, Sam?” Sam opened his mouth, to protest, to deny, but he didn’t get the chance to let lose even a single syllable, Azazel continuing onwards. “I know you like the pain,” he said. “Makes you feel alive.” 

Exhaustion swept over Sam, bone-deep. He’d almost died, had put himself through being eaten alive by a hellhound, and it hadn’t made a fucking difference. Hadn’t changed a single goddamn thing. “Yeah,” he said, voice flat and dull. “Yeah, I do.” 

“C’mon Sam, don’t be like that,” Azazel said, voice coaxing and deceptively soft. “Where’s the fight? Where’s the fire?” Sam shook his head, and Azazel shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “I’ve told you before though, Sam. You die, you end up right back here, except I won’t have to worry about preserving your weak physical shell anymore.” Azazel leaned forward, voice dropping to little more than a hiss.  _ “Do you know how much more you can do to someone if they just reset with a snap of your fingers,” _ he said, and Sam couldn’t help the shiver that rippled through him. He shook his head again. He did, he did know, but he didn’t know what else he could do. What other escape could possibly exist for him except for the ill-defined and barely existing hope that there was a void waiting for him beyond his last breath, rather than just more hellfire and pain. 

After a long minute of silence, Azazel finally sighed, pushing himself upright and bracing his arms on his knees. 

“I am impressed you figured out a way around the curse,” Azazel admitted, examining Sam’s face. “I’ll have to expand its parameters.” Sam flinched, and Azazel laughed. Sam opened his mouth to speak, but just shut it again without making a sound. Begging wouldn’t help, nothing he said would help, and there was no way to know if it might not just make things worse instead. The curse already covered everything else he had thought of anyways. Without the hope of passive death, there was truly no way out, no lingering dream making him cling to something that had long ago died. His fingers wrapped stupidly, uselessly around the last shredded remains of Sam Winchester, the boy who had had a father, had a brother who loved him, had a life and a future and freedom. The boy who didn’t yet know what he really was. 

Sam let out a long, shuddering breath. 

_ No way out,  _ he thought. 

and

_ Sam Winchester is dead. _

For the first time he let that knowledge really, truly sink into him, feeling it slide under his skin and twine around his bones, inescapable, undeniable.

Azazel tilted his head, humming as he watched Sam’s breathing even out. 

“There you are, my Puer Regem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway through!! And we finally know who has Sam [eyes emoji]
> 
> Thank you as always to Helen, who is the best kind of bully.


	11. Lost Creek Wilderness, Colorado, 2007

**Lost Creek Wilderness, Colorado, 2007**

“You are not taking care of yourself.”

Dean let out a noise that was definitely not a yelp, the Impala swerving slightly under his hands as he involuntarily jerked at the steering wheel in surprise. 

“Jesus  _ fucking  _ Christ,” Dean said, looking over to see Castiel sitting in the passenger seat, looking at him with a completely impassive expression. “You can’t just fucking… fucking  _ zap _ into my car like that,  _ what the fuck _ .”

“You broke three of your ribs,” Castiel said, ignoring Dean. He reached out, two fingers held together in a now-familiar gesture, and Dean swatted at his arm before Castiel could touch him. It was like hitting a block of solid cement, and he fought not to react as he pulled his hand back to cradle it protectively against his chest.

“Leave my ribs alone,” Dean said. “They’re fine, I’m fine, I don’t need any more of your weird angel healing mojo crap.” 

“You have acquired four fractures, six puncture wounds, cut your hands on a garotte, and tore the skin of your leg on a barbed wire fence,” Castiel listed, still staring intently at the side of Dean’s face. “This month,” he added. Dean’s eyes flicked between Castiel and the road. 

“What?” he asked. 

“You are not being careful,” Castiel said. 

“I don’t know how much you know about hunting pal,” Dean said, “but injuries are kinda in the job description.” Castiel made an expression that might have been displeasure. 

“There is no nee–” Castiel started.

“So what, you’ve been watching me?” Dean interrupted, not interested in another comment about his choices. “Like, watching-watching me? Why haven’t you showed up before now then?” Dean asked. Castiel shifted slightly, though his expression didn’t change. 

“It was not necessary,” he said. “Your injuries were survivable, it did not require my intervention.” Dean glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“But three cracked ribs do? Three cracked ribs that I got four days ago?” Okay yeah, that was definitely embarrassment on Castiel’s face, though Dean didn’t understand why the angel would be embarrassed. 

“You need to be more careful,” the angel insisted again.  _ Jesus _ he was persistent. 

“Okay, message received, be more careful. You got it.” Castiel squinted at Dean. 

“I do not believe you,” he finally ruled, and Dean shot him his most winning smile. 

“What, you don’t trust me?” Dean said. Castiel tilted his head to the side. 

“Not in regards to your personal safety,” he said, and it was Dean’s turn to shift slightly in discomfort. He cleared his throat, but didn’t offer any further protest. Castiel didn’t add anything else either, looking out the window in silence. Dean glanced at Castiel out of the corner of his eye, expecting to hear the sound of wings beating any second, for Castiel to disappear just like he had every time previously. He didn’t move though, just sat there, back ramrod straight, like the stick up his ass was physically holding him upright. 

The cassette clicked over to Gallows Pole, Robert Plant’s familiar voice filling the silence between them. Dean tried to focus on the road, focus on what he was doing and not on the fact that Castiel hadn’t flown away yet. It was a losing battle, the strangeness of anyone sitting in the passenger seat prickling at him, the strangeness of it being Castiel making the feeling a thousand times worse. He managed to bite his tongue as the final note faded into the fuzz between songs. When the next track rose to fill the silence, Dean’s curiosity finally got the best of him. 

“Uh, don’t you have like… heaven stuff to do? Angel business? Whatever you do when you’re not white knighting random hunters?” 

Castiel brought his full attention back onto Dean. His gaze was always so intense. It was disconcerting. “No,” he said.

Dean blinked at him, but the angel didn’t seem inclined to explain any further, attention leaving Dean as quickly as it had come. Dean opened his mouth, but just shut it again without saying anything. He had, he was realizing, absolutely no idea how to talk to the angel. 

“Are… do you… I’m on my way to a hunt?” he eventually got out, hating that it ended up sounding more like a question than a statement of fact. He was still cursing himself in his head when he caught out of the corner of his eye, the movement of Castiel turning to him. 

“I’m aware,” he said. Dean risked taking his eyes off of the road for the chance to look at the angel’s face, but Castiel’s expression was completely inscrutable. There was a long, painful moment of silence. Dean’s hands flexed on the wheel.  _ Does he just not blink?  _ he thought, ears heating as Castiel continued to stare.

“Do you… want to come?” Dean finally asked, a desperate bid for something,  _ anything _ , to break the silence hanging heavily between them. To his surprise, Castiel looked pleased.

“Yes,” he said, nodding once, sharp and sure. He didn’t say anything else, leaving Dean feeling like he’d somehow been tricked into doing something he hadn’t meant to do. Even if he wasn’t quite sure what that was.

They fell into silence. Dean felt like he had a hundred questions, but they all frayed off into a hundred more anytime he tried to grab hold of a single one, leaving him chasing threads inside his own head with no idea where to start. 

_ Why are you here?  _

and

_ Why did you save me? Why do you keep saving me?  _

and

_ What does God want from me?  _

Dean’s eyes flicked to Castiel, who was apparently no longer paying any sort of attention to Dean. Instead, he was peering out the window of the passenger side’s door, leaving Dean with nothing but the barest glimpse of his profile, the curve of his jaw. Castiel had said that God had commanded him to save Dean, or look after Dean, but he still didn’t get why.  _ God has work for you,  _ Dean thought, stuck on the memory of the intensity with which Castiel had spoken those words, as well as how completely he’d avoided expanding upon them, how he’d avoided giving Dean any indication of what the fuck that could possibly mean. Dean wanted to ask again so, so badly, but he hesitated. It was just one mystery among many, the car-crash pileup of questions inside his brain that he couldn’t detangle, couldn’t prioritize, and something told Dean that it was the one that he was least likely to get an answer to. He also had the uncomfortable feeling that whatever the answer was, it was going to be bad. Something brutal and painful and probably fatal. It seemed like the natural continuation of the rest of his life anyways, though maybe this time on a scale that he didn’t want to contemplate. Equally as strong a suspicion: he wouldn’t have any say in it either way. Though he couldn’t say for sure how much of that was an actual premonition or just standard issue hunter cynicism, the curse that had hung above his head since he was four years old: gonna die young, gonna die bloody, gonna die bad. 

Dean swallowed, and didn’t say anything at all. 

The road was a narrow, two-lane highway, the pavement dark and slick with the morning’s rain. Beneath the Impala’s tires the bright yellow rectangles marking the division between the two lanes were swallowed again and again, mesmerising in their steadiness. The late morning sunlight was dampened by the clouds still lingering above them, though they were quickly burning off as the sun rose further and further into the sky, streaks of blue ripping through the grey, spreading and growing like tears in a distant, unending sheet. The thick trunks and heavy boughs and dark leaves of the forest around them bowed down towards the road, the occasional fat drop of rainwater landing on the windshield; breaking apart and sending smaller droplets scurrying up the smooth glass. Though the windows were shut, the smell of pine and water permeated the Impala, calming despite the steady thrum of unease caused by Dean’s passenger, who was still docilely staring out the window. The occasional car drove past them, close enough for the air to shift, both cars rocking with the force of the other’s passing. High beam to low beam, eye on the shoulder, sleeper lines vibrating the steering wheel beneath his fingers. 

Dean had left town an hour before Castiel had arrived, and the folded map he’d taken from the visitor’s centre on his way through said they wouldn’t be passing anything else until they hit the ranger’s station. Dean couldn’t decide if he should treat Castiel like he was just another hunter, like this was just another case. If he should break the silence filling the car and tell him what Dean knew so far, what his plan was. What Castiel should do, when they arrived. It felt strange to even think about talking to an angel like that, some delayed sense of awe or reverence or fear making Dean hesitate to open his mouth. Half-surfaced memories crowded his throat every time he tried to speak, smothering the words before they ever had the chance to form. A childhood spent in and out of churches, sleeping in the backseat of the Impala propped up by dusty apocrypha and charred heretic ramblings. Sam’s soft voice carefully sounding out Latin passages. The smudged, inky black of woodcut prints and careful charcoal drawings: Ezekiel's cherubim, shaped like a human but with the face of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle; living beings, angels of fire, with eyes all over, front and back; the orphanim, unanthropomorphic wheels, forever twisting and burning, guarding the throne of God. 

The forest was dense, with little to see other than an unending wall of thick brown trunks, splitting the higher your eyes travelled, fracturing into branches weighed down with water and painfully vibrant green needles. The small ditch that divided it from the roadway was jarringly variegated in contrast: green crabgrass interspersed with riotously bright wildflowers, tall green stalks with balls of purple dancing down the stems, bushes covered in tiny white dots, squat plants covered in cheerful yellow blooms. Castiel was still watching as the forest rushed past. It was little more than a brown-green blur to Dean as he kept his attention fixed on the road in front of him, the steady cycle of checks: road, shoulder, rearview. It was beautiful, in the distant way that so much landscape existed for Dean after a lifetime of transient passage through every possible permutation of greenery and rocks and weather that the continent had to offer. Castiel seemed fascinated with it though, and the thought suddenly occurred to Dean that this might be the first time Castiel had seen a forest up close. His eyes slid helplessly towards the angel, the bow of his back under the familiar tan trenchcoat, and wondered how much time the angel had spent on earth. 

If Dean hadn’t been looking for it, he could easily have missed the turn-off to the ranger’s station, a narrow road splitting off from the highway, the weathered wooden sign all but invisible under the waterlogged branches drooping in front of it. As it was, he still barely caught it, didn’t have time to slow down enough to make a smooth exit off the highway. The abrupt turn and deceleration sent both him and Castiel jerking to the side, then forward, seatbelts straining to keep them in place, and Dean didn’t have to look at him to know that the angel was now firmly staring at the side of Dean’s head, though without looking at him directly he couldn’t begin to guess at what was in his expression. Annoyance, probably. Dean cleared his throat, feeling self-conscious anyways. They had ten or twelve miles left before they hit the ranger’s station, the last, small outpost of civilization at the outskirts of Lost Creek, and Dean knew that he was running out of time to say anything to Castiel about the hunt. The road they were on now was much like the highway, though here the trees were much closer to the road, the foliage above them stretching out to join together and create an almost perfect green canopy that dimmed the light, cast flickering shadows across the hood of the Impala. After a few minutes of driving, Dean finally gathered up the nerve to look at the angel. Castiel was already looking back at him, flashes of sunlight and shadow sliding over his face, his eyes fixed intently on Dean. Dean fought the urge to flinch back from the unexpected scrutiny, clearing his throat again just for something to do. When Castiel continued to stare at him, Dean finally gathered up the nerve to speak. 

“So we’re going to be at the ranger’s station soon,” he said. Castiel’s expression didn’t change, but he didn’t look away either. “I’ll need to go in and ask them some questions. It might be better if you just wait in the car though.” 

“Why?” Castiel asked, like Dean had been hoping he wouldn’t. 

“Um,” he started, taking a quick, nervous breath, “uh, I mean, I was gonna tell them that I’m from the Fish and Wildlife Service, and I don’t have a badge for you, so…” Dean trailed off as Castiel frowned in thought. Finally, he nodded, and Dean swallowed down a sigh of relief. He really hadn’t wanted to deal with taking the angel, who seemed to have a somewhat loose grasp on how to interact with people, along with him to question civilians. 

“I will wait,” Castiel said. 

“Okay, okay good,” Dean said. “Uh, that’s good. I’ll go in then, ask the rangers about the disappearances, see if I can get anything out of them that makes any sense.” Castiel blinked at him. 

“What do you mean?” he asked

“I tried to talk to people in town about—wait,” Dean said, “you said you knew I was on a hunt. I thought you already—do you know what I’m hunting?” 

“No,” Castiel said. God, Dean could  _ feel  _ him fucking staring at him.  _ Again. _

“Okay,” Dean said, drawing out the word. “Aren’t you supposed to be all seeing or something?” Castiel looked offended. 

“Only the Lord of Hosts is all seeing and all knowing,” he said. “I am but a saraph, forever burning, angel of the Lord and soldier in the Heavenly armies. I do not possess the knowledge of divinity: that which is and was and will be is the purview of the Almighty alone.” Dean nodded, a bit overwhelmed by the ferocity of Castiel’s words, reverberating with the same kind of conviction with which he’d first told Dean that God had commanded him to save Dean. 

“Right,” he said, clearing his throat and shifting slightly. “Well, okay, uh, I guess…” he trailed off, pausing to try and pull himself together.  _ Just like any other hunt,  _ he told himself, taking a deep breath before he started again. 

“I’m not sure what I’m—what we’re hunting yet either. Buddy of mine sent me some footage that was caught by one of those wildlife camera things. Everyone online was passing it off as some kind of hoax but the ranger who posted it to Reddit swore up and down that it was real. It wasn’t even really anything either, just this huge shape. Human-ish but way too big to actually be a human. Way too fast too. So, I had a look into the area to see if there was anything that would prove this was an actual hunt,” Dean paused, but Castiel seemed to have settled from his earlier moment of offense, and was back to just doing his creepy staring thing. 

“There've been disappearances in Lost Creek going back to the late ‘30s. Not unusual for a wilderness area of this size, people are dumb as fuck, go out into the forest with no idea what they’re doing all the time and then just get lost and die of exposure.” Dean paused to arrange the facts in his head. He was beginning to feel more comfortable, the rhythms of discussing a hunt as familiar as the person – thing – he was discussing it with was unfamiliar. “There were a couple of people though, where rangers or other hikers found some of their supplies, ripped to shreds and covered in blood. There’s no bears in the area, not since the 70s, so it’s not like they’re getting them. I’ve got fuckall on what it could be though. No local legends, no one who’s seen anything, or at least no one willing to cop to it.” A memory flashed through Dean’s mind: the few people whose faces had shut down almost as quickly as their doors when he’d suggested that there might be something out there, in the wilderness. “There was one guy, Shaw, who survived an attack in 1959 that killed his parents and left him with some wicked scars. They said it was a bear at the time, but Shaw swore it was a monster up until the day he died. Of course, because my timing sucks ass, he died last year, so whatever information he might have had,” Dean made a popping noise, jerking his thumb towards the window, “took it to his grave.” 

Dean had spent almost three days driving through the towns that bordered the forest, stopping in each one to ask around if anyone knew anything about disappearances in the wilderness, but most people just seemed confused. The few that didn’t weren’t able to tell him anything other than stories of family and friends that had just walked into the trees one day and never came back. The ghosts in their eyes hadn’t been the kind that Dean knew how to deal with, and he’d looked away. It never got any easier, prying people’s pain from them in the hopes that it could save someone else the same in the future. It was necessary, but it made Dean feel like a thief every time, weighed down by the lies he wove to get into people’s homes, to get their trust, to take their stories for his own. Tearing apart their hurt for breadcrumb clues that might lead him back to the monster in the woods. 

“Last disappearances were a couple years ago,” he continued. “This guy was out camping with his buddies when they all went missing. His sister and brother hired a guide to try and track him down. Instead they all just disappeared right along with him.” Dean shook his head, the story making his chest ache just as bad as it had when he’d first read about it, the photo of the three missing siblings – Haley, Ben, Tommy – smiling out at him from an article about their disappearance in the fall of 2005, their faces ghostly blue and flickering on the ancient monitor in the corner of a small town library. They’d been orphans, had only had each other, and they’d all died trying to find their way back to each other. He’d tried his best not to draw any parallels but, well, it wasn’t like they were hard to draw.  _ Not gonna happen,  _ he told himself, same as he had the first time he’d had the thought.  _ I’m not leaving this fucking earth without him.  _

There was a long stretch of silence, before Dean finally looked over at Castiel again. The angel apparently hadn’t stopped staring at him, his attention singularly locked onto Dean. Predictable at this point, and yet it still almost made Dean jump.  _ Fuck.  _ It wasn’t getting any less unnerving with exposure. He almost wanted to take him into the rangers station just to check if Castiel looked at everyone like that, or if that focus was reserved for Dean alone.  _ What,  _ he wanted to scream, a sudden rush of anger making his fingers flex on the steering wheel, his breath catch in his throat.  _ What do you want from me, why are you here, why do you keep goddamn saving me. _

“So when we get to the ranger’s station,” he said instead, “I’ll go in and ask them if they know anything, maybe if we get lucky whichever dumbass posted the video to Reddit will actually be there. Then, we’ll head into the woods.” Castiel squinted at him. 

“That’s your plan?” he said. It was truly remarkable that he was able to convey exactly how unimpressed he was without a single trace of inflection marring any of his words. Dean shrugged. 

“Best I’ve got,” he said. “I’ve only got one tent though and pal, I’m warning you, I don’t cuddle.” 

“I don’t sleep,” Castiel said, voice so flat Dean couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. 

“...seriously?” he asked after a moment. 

“Angels do not require sleep,” Castiel said. “We are the watchers at the gates and at the throne; the ceaseless observers of humanity and all the realms of the divine, that the Lord might command us as He will.” There was a long silence. 

“Oh,” Dean finally said, glancing at the angel.  _ I need to get my hands on a fucking Bible,  _ he thought. A sunbeam hit Castiel’s face, making his eyes glow an inhuman blue and Dean had to actually work to look away, to force himself to return his attention to the road. A rustle of tan fabric let him know that Castiel was doing the same. 

Eventually, the road opened up ahead of them to a sunlit clearing, bordered by shadows and the close embrace of the forest. Where the forest had long ago been cut back was a small parking lot, a handful of cars and trucks parked there, some with enough needles and debris on top of their metal and plastic shells to indicate that they’d been there for at least a day. Hikers, Dean figured, since there were also two forestry service vehicles, with their crests clearly painted on the doors, parked next to the squat wooden building at the other end of the clearing. He pulled in next to one of the other vehicles, making sure he had a clear view of the ranger’s station as he came to a stop. Cutting the engine, he leaned forward to look past Castiel and examine the building. It was one story, though from the small window set just beneath the peak of the roof, he figured there was also an attic, maybe a basement. There were no signs of movement through the large windows that bracketed the front door, but the sunlight made it difficult to tell for sure, glancing off of the glass in blinding flashes. Dean reached out and opened the glovebox, only belatedly realizing he was basically leaning across the angel’s lap to do so. He froze, just for a second, before following through on the motion, grabbing the cigar box full of badges, not looking at Castiel as he settled back into his seat and began flipping through them. Sam’s badges were all bundled in the trunk, held together with a worn hair tie, photos years out of date and utterly useless. Dean still couldn’t bring himself to throw them out. It was the work of a moment to find the correct badge for himself. Dean flipped the box shut one-handed, hesitating before awkwardly putting it down on the seat between them. When he finally looked at Castiel, he was unsurprised to find the angel’s attention already locked onto him.  _ God fucking damnit. _ Dean cleared his throat. 

“I’m going to go inside now, talk to the rangers. You’ll stay here?” he asked. 

Castiel gave him another unimpressed look. “Yes Dean, as discussed, I will wait here.” 

Dean nodded, feeling awkward and stupid. “Right, okay,” he said, and climbed out of the car, shutting the door behind him. He walked around the front, glancing at the trailhead map as he passed it. A large green sign declared the fire risk as low, while another warned of unstable rock formations, to not leave the path, to be wary of flash floods in the rain. Shockingly, nothing about a monster hiding among the trees, waiting to tear you apart. Dean glanced back at the car, but Castiel hadn’t moved at all, sitting unnaturally still, back stiff and perfectly straight. Dean watched him for a long moment before, with a weird twist of his stomach, he realized that the reason Castiel’s stillness was so unnerving was because he wasn’t  _ breathing.  _ A chill crawled up his spine and he turned and quickly crossed the remaining distance between him and the station. Despite the sunlight, the air was still cool and damp, and he was happy to be wearing a flannel under his jacket. He tried not to think about how cold it would probably be at night, though he did spare a second to wish that he had risked maxing out his last card on that new sleeping bag after all. The wooden steps leading up to the small porch creaked under his heavy hiking boots, one two three before he was standing on the narrow porch. The front door creaked when he swung it open as well, habit making him wince even though he knew there was no reason for him to try and hide his entrance. 

The small room he stepped into was unoccupied, and he looked around curiously. Next to the door was an ancient metal spinner, stuffed with postcards and maps. Beside that, a few shelves filled with bric-à-brac and basic hiking and camping supplies, the kind of small things someone might have accidentally forgotten to pack: granola bars, water purification tablets, flashlights and spare batteries, bear spray, whistles. Dean looked at the bear spray with interest. There were no bears in the area, but that didn’t necessarily mean much to an inexperienced hiker, afraid of every breaking branch and rustle of the wind and looking for that little extra bit of reassurance that they weren’t about to get eaten. Still, it was interesting that the ranger’s station sold it. A small counter with an ancient cash register and two vending machines with drinks and snacks rounded out the small room. There were three doors on the back wall: two bathrooms and another one marked employees only. To his left, between two windows facing the forest, was a large map of the wilderness area, and Dean wandered towards it, curious. 

He had the map he’d already gotten from the last town back in the Impala, but this one was far more detailed, focused only on the almost 120,000 acres of wilderness that spread out in front of him. A red spider web of trails crisscrossed the green and yellow flows and ebbs of hills and mountains, valleys and ravines, the white misshapen circle of Bison Peak rising above the smaller mountains and foothills. Brown triangles marked the camp sites scattered throughout the wilderness, white houses the other rangers stations. His eyes were tracking the blue curve of Lost Creek winding through the map towards where it joined Goose Creek when he heard movement from behind him and turned to see a woman in a ranger’s uniform, surprise clear on her face, stepping through the back door. He caught the briefest glimpse of a kitchen before the door swung shut behind her. 

“Sorry!” she said, crossing the room, “I didn’t hear you come in.” The stretched drawl of her words put her as having migrated from somewhere east of Colorado. Dean smiled at her, a well-practiced easy and open expression. 

“No worries,” he said. “I only just got here.” She looked relieved as she came to a stop in front of him. 

“I’m Ranger Obiye,” she introduced herself. “What can I help you with?” Dean fingered the edge of the badge in his pocket, then made an impulsive decision. 

“I’m looking to get a camping permit for me and my friend,” he said, nodding his head towards the parking lot. 

“Okay!” she said, walking around to the back of the counter, bending to grab something from below. “How many nights do you need?” 

“Five,” Dean picked at random, speaking to the top of her head, watching the tightly cropped black curls bob as she searched for whatever it was she was looking for. It was a good enough span of time he figured. If he didn’t find the monster by the end of five days he’d have to think of something else anyways. Obiye looked up from what appeared to be a stack of forms she had been flipping through, seemingly surprised. 

“Five?” she repeated, and Dean belatedly realized that that was probably a long time to be going hiking without having bought the permits in advance. 

“Bit of an impulsive trip,” he said, leaning in slightly. “My friend just found out his wife was cheating on him, figured he needed some time away.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, her expression changing to open sympathy. “Do you both have previous experience camping in the backcountry?” 

“I do,” Dean said, “my friend not so much, but I’ve got him.” She nodded, smiling at him as she turned back to filling out the form. She spun it around to him, and he bent to fill it with details matching the credit card currently sitting in his wallet. He hesitated over what to put down for Castiel before finally penciling him in as Dave Stewart, pulling the rest of the details from the last ID he’d burned. 

“I did want to ask,” Dean started, keeping his voice carefully casually, as if the question had only just occurred to him, “he’s a bit nervous so just so I can reassure him, have you had any large animal sightings, any hikers going missing, anything like that in the area?” He straightened, pushing the completed form across the counter. Obiye looked nervous, though she was obviously trying to hide it, shifting from foot to foot. 

“Well, there’s not much in the area in terms of big animals. Um, bighorn sheep, elk, bobcats. The occasional black bear.” 

Dean frowned. “I thought the last bear in the area was killed in the 70s?” he asked. She shook her head. 

“That was the last grizzly,” she corrected, then squinted at him. “Have you hiked somewhere with black bears before?” 

“Of course,” Dean said, resisting the urge to add that he’d been to plenty of places where the bears were the least dangerous things around. Not that it made a difference in this case—black bears basically never attacked humans. He also had a feeling Castiel was more than up to the challenge of a bear attack. 

“Okay,” she said, “do you have any other questions?” 

“Yeah, sorry, just, the other part of my last question… do you ever have people go missing?” Dean asked again, and that same nervous look passed over her face. “Don’t worry,” he said, shooting her an open smile, “I don’t scare easy.” She shifted, before finally sighing. 

“Statistically, we do have a slightly higher than average number of people go missing a year,” she admitted. “Do you know where you’re planning on going yet?” 

Dean shook his head. “Figured we’d just wing it,” he said. 

Obiye stepped out from behind the counter, going over to the rack of maps by the door. As Dean watched, she plucked one out, opening it as she walked back towards him. She spread it out over the counter and pointed towards a red dot. 

“This is where we are, the Payne Creek ranger station and trailhead,” she said, then traced the red line leading from it with a single finger. “The trail here is the Brookside-McCurdy Trail, it’s the major north-south route through the middle of the Lost Creek Wilderness and is very heavily used – you’ll probably pass a lot of other hikers, some horseback riders. If you follow it south, it’ll take you up the Platte River Range, and through the MacArthur Gulch. That’s where you’re going to find more of the domes and knobs and granite arches, it’s very beautiful. You can split off here onto the Lake Park Trail and go up through Hankins Pass, or you can keep going south. If you do that, you’ll end up following Indian Creek upstream to a high saddle between the Lost Creek and Tarryall Creek drainages, where it meets the Ute Creek Trail.” She paused, obviously debating for a second before she seemed to make a decision. Continuing, she traced a small red line that split off from the one she’d been pointing at previously. 

“The Ute Creek Trail is one of the least used trails, and has the quickest increase in altitude in the whole range. It leads to Bison Pass and you can use it to climb either Bison Peak or McCurdy Mountain.” She paused again, staring down at the map for a long moment before tapping it twice with her finger. “If your friend is nervous about the possibility of you getting lost, stay on the Brookside-McCurdy Trail, it passes over the shoulder of Bison Peak and down into an old burn area with some incredible views. You can then loop back to here using the McCurdy Park Trail.” Dean looked at her, then back down to the map. 

“A lot of people tend to get lost off of the Ute Creek Trail then?” he said, and knew that he’d found the right spot when she hesitated before replying. 

“It’s one of the most difficult trails,” she answered, evading the actual question. 

“Okay, we’ll probably skip that one then, thanks,” Dean lied. He pulled out his wallet, nodding towards the map. “Can I get that with my camping permit?” he asked, and she looked relieved as she made her way back around the counter.

“Of course!” she said, and ten minutes later Dean was leaving the ranger station with a slip of paper to leave on the Impala’s dashboard and a handful of forms, folded and stuffed into his jacket pocket. He paused on the porch. Across the clearing where the Impala sat, black and gleaming in the sunlight, the shape of Castiel was just barely visible through the window, still exactly where Dean had left him.  _ What the hell am I doing,  _ he thought. 

The sun was almost directly overhead as he crossed the parking lot. He headed directly to the trunk, opening it to reveal the backpack he’d packed the day before when he’d decided to just take the plunge and head up into the wilderness rather than continue fruitlessly searching for more information amongst the surrounding towns. He was just double checking that he had everything he needed—food, campstove, water, clothing, sleeping bag, tent, headlamp, long silver knife placed in a sheath and affixed to his thigh, a clip of silver and consecrated irons bullets each, toiletries—when the creak of the passenger door opening broke the silence of the clearing. He didn’t look up as the door shut, focusing instead on fastening all the clips on the backpack. The sound of gravel crunching underfoot telegraphed Castiel’s approach. When Dean straightened, taking the backpack with him, he wasn’t surprised to find Castiel standing uncomfortably close to him, eyes fixed unerringly on Dean’s own.

“Uh, sorry, we’re gonna head out now, I just need to…” Dean said, trailing off when Castiel didn’t react. He cleared his throat, then shouldered the pack, shutting the trunk and heading around to the driver’s side door for a final check, returning the badge to the cigar box, the cigar box to the glovebox, and putting the parking slip on the dash. Castiel followed right behind him, and Dean tried not to tense up. But when he straightened from placing the pass to find Castiel again inches from him , he couldn’t help the words that slipped out.

“Dude, personal space.” 

Castiel blinked at him, and Dean reached out to put a hand in the centre of his chest. A frisson of electricity sparked up his arm at the touch, though he couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined. He tried to push Castiel backwards, but he might as well have been pushing a brick wall. Castiel didn’t so much as sway. “Back up,” he said, and Castiel paused, considering, before taking a few small steps backwards. The look he gave Dean was hesitant, and Dean again wondered how much time Castiel had spent on earth, interacting with humans. “Better,” he said, watching as the angel’s shoulders sank slightly as he relaxed. Shaking his head, Dean closed and locked the Impala, pocketing the keys. 

“C’mon,” he said, nodding towards the trailhead. Castiel trailed along behind him, and Dean spared a second to wonder if he should suggest that maybe he should be wearing something a bit more hiking appropriate than a suit with dress shoes, before he dismissed the thought. If Castiel didn’t sleep, and didn’t breathe, he really doubted that he got anything so vulnerably human as blisters. He wondered if the angel experienced any real physical sensations. Did he eat? Sweat? Get tired? Dean glanced at the angel trailing along behind him as they stepped between the two wooden posts that marked the start of the trail. Castiel looked back at him, his expression inscrutable, and Dean quickly turned around, feeling his ears go warm with an embarrassment that he rarely felt. 

The forest swallowed them quickly, and it wasn’t long before a look back the way they’d come showed no sign of either the parking lot or the ranger’s station. No longer a brown and green blur streaking past his car’s windows, the forest coalesced into a jumble of evergreens: fir and spruce mixed with ponderosa and lodgepole pine. The smell of them was thick and rich in the air, brighter and sharper for the recent rainfall, though the ground beneath their feet had now dried enough to kick up dirt, which quickly coated Dean’s boots in a fine brown dust. The occasional tall white spire of an aspen, just beginning to redecorate itself with small green buds, broke up the mix, the trunk standing in stark contrast with the majority of the forest around them. The underbrush was made up of saplings and bushes and many of the same wildflowers that had decorated the edges of the highway, densely packed and interrupted only by the occasional animal path and fallen log. Despite the shadows cast by the overlooking trees, the forest didn’t feel dark or oppressive, the streaks of sunlight breaking through providing plenty of light, highlighting the colours of the underbrush, the dirt path in front of Dean beckoning them forward. Like this, it seemed impossible that this place was harbouring a monster, that somewhere in its depths was something hungry and ancient and waiting. 

They had been walking for about an hour. Long enough that they were well away from that last tiny outpost of civilization, but still nowhere near the centre of the wilderness. Based on what the ranger had said, the monster’s hunting grounds were still a two or three day hike away. Despite this, despite the sunlight, the growing warmth of the air, and the general peacefulness of the forest, something slowly began to gnaw at the edges of Dean’s nerves as they walked, making his shoulders hunch forward slightly, eyes scanning his surroundings for anything that seemed out of place. He didn’t know what it was, couldn’t be the monster, but something was  _ here,  _ something that was making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something dangerous, something patient and watching. 

It took much longer than it should have for Dean to realize what it was. It was a familiar feeling at this point, and it was honestly a bit embarrassing that it had taken him so long to recognize the weight of Castiel’s gaze on the back of his neck. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that the angel, walking silently behind him, had his eyes fixed unwaveringly on Dean, and Dean felt the back of his neck heat as he turned to face forward again. With a guilty jolt, he realized that he hadn’t actually told Castiel what the ranger had said.  _ Not omniscient, _ he reminded himself. The sound of him clearing his throat seemed impossibly loud. 

“So, uh, I talked to the ranger about the area, she was a bit dodgy and wouldn’t say anything outright, but there was this one trail, going up towards the tallest mountain in the wilderness area, that she said to avoid if we didn’t want to get lost,” he paused, and when Castiel didn’t say anything, he couldn’t stop himself from checking to make sure the angel was still there. 

Castiel stared back at him, and Dean quickly looked away. 

“I figure we head up there, poke around, see what we can find. I’ve got a silver blade, and then silver and consecrated iron bullets alongside my standard lead ones, so I figure that’ll hopefully cover us.” Dean remembered the unfamiliar weight of Castiel’s sword in his hand, and wondered if the angel had it with him again, or if he had any other weapons. It felt awkward to ask though, and when Castiel didn’t offer up any information, Dean just kept talking. 

“It’s about a three day hike, so I hope you don’t have anywhere else to be,” he said. “I thin–” 

“Wait,” Castiel said, and Dean stopped, turning to face him. Castiel was frowning at him. 

“What’s up?” Dean asked. 

“Where are we going?” Castiel asked.

“Oh, yeah, right, sure,” Dean said as he scrambled for the map he’d shoved into his pocket. Unfolding it, he scanned the paper until he found the trailhead the ranger had pointed out to him. Refolding it to keep the trailhead on top, he moved closer to show it to Castiel. Up close, not surrounded by blood and death and fear, not wrapped in the familiar scents of the Impala, Dean realized that Castiel smelled like ozone, sharp and strangely woody. Like a lightning strike hitting some ancient tree; a power so immense as to be incomprehensible and yet still intermingling easily with the scent of shattered wood, common and familiar. Castiel blinked, and Dean realized that he’d been staring at him, caught up in his own head. Clearing his throat again, he tilted the map towards the angel. 

“This is where we’re headed,” he said, pointing. “The Ute Creek Trail, it intersects with—” Dean cut himself off when he felt Castiel’s hand grip his shoulder. He looked down at the fingers denting the fabric of his coat, surprised. “Wh–” he started to say, and then Castiel released his shoulder. 

Dean swayed where he stood, back and forth, back and forth, and then took two steps off the trail to bend over and puke into the bushes. He could sense Castiel behind him, probably still just standing there and watching Dean puke, the fucking  _ asshole.  _ Dean was helpless to do anything but vomit though, and try not to fall over while he did so. The sensation of his muscles clenching, his entire body shivering, was familiar, though he’d only felt it once before, and he clung to the knowledge that it had passed then, and would pass now too. Eventually, it did, and Dean stood, taking a couple of deep breaths before stepping back onto the path. Shrugging off his backpack, he dug through it until he could find his water bottle, rinsing the taste of puke from his mouth. Castiel watched him curiously.

“You have to fucking warn me when you’re going to do that,” Dean said after spitting out a final mouthful of water and bile. 

Castiel tilted his head to the side. “Why?” he asked. “Knowing in advance will not stop your body’s physiological reaction.” 

“Yeah well, it’s just… polite to warn a guy when you’re planning on pulling him through a fucking metaphysical pane or whatever the fuck you’re doing when you do that teleporting shit.” 

“I’m flying,” Castiel said, as if that should have been obvious, as if that was just a totally normal thing to be able to do. 

“Right, of course, you’re flying,” Dean said, because nothing about his life made sense anymore. “Just… give me a heads up next time.” 

Castiel nodded, expression serious. “I will,” he said, and Dean nodded in turn before finally taking a look at where the angel had deposited them. He wasn’t surprised to see a wooden sign a couple feet away with the words ‘Ute Creek Trail’ carved into it.  _ That was a lot easier than walking,  _ some traitorous part of his brain commented, but Dean ignored it in favour of scanning the rest of their surroundings. They were now far from the thick of the forest that they’d started in, the trees scraggly and few between, more krummholz than anything else, their deformed shapes a perfect complement to the unease that Dean was beginning to feel now that he found himself much, much closer to where the unknown monster waited. The bristlecone pines interspersed with the spruce and lodgepole looked far sturdier, their trunks thick and wide, a far better opponent for the wind that was skimming the alpine tundra he could see covering the mountainside above them. Tough sedges and cushion plants had replaced the taller and more lush greenery of the lower forest, splashes of grey and green lichen decorating the rocks that made up much of the landscape. 

“Well,” Dean said, shouldering his backpack. “Let’s go find ourselves a monster.” 

The new trail was wider at least, leaving enough space for Castiel to walk alongside Dean, which was a relief for multiple reasons. Mainly that Dean was on edge enough already—keeping his eyes and senses alert to any sign of some unnatural creature creeping across the landscape—that he really didn’t need the added prickle of Castiel’s eyes on his back. It also allowed Dean to be the one to stare at the angel for a change. Castiel had apparently once again decided that their surroundings were more interesting than Dean, looking around with the same expression that he’d worn when watching the forest out of the Impala’s windows. Dean opened his mouth a couple times to ask if Castiel had ever done anything like this before, if he’d spent any time wandering Earth, but he chickened out every time. He watched instead, taking in the focus Castiel brought to bear on everything they walked past. He seemed just as serious squinting at an oddly shaped rock as he had when fighting the hellhounds, like both situations required equal attention, equal gravitas. The late-afternoon sunlight emphasized his features: the sharpness of his jawline, still with that same five-o-clock shadow that he’d had every time Dean had seen him, his hair in just as much disarray, the swell of chapped lips, the lines accenting the corners of his eyes. 

A pika hopped up on top of one of the rocks beside the trail, chirping at them. Assured that it wasn’t a monster, Dean’s attention moved from the animal back to Castiel just in time to see a small smile steal across the angel’s face as he looked down at the pika. Dean’s chest clenched at the sight. The smile was tentative, like it wasn’t an expression familiar to Castiel’s face, but it looked sincere, filled with an uncomplicated happiness. It made his eyes crinkle up at the corners. There was no sense of self-consciousness as he watched the small animal twitch its nose at them a couple of times before disappearing into the rocks and plants. Castiel’s gaze followed after it, and Dean caught himself smiling. He stopped as soon as he realized what he was doing, schooling his expression back to neutrality. Swallowing roughly, Dean forced himself to face forward, to concentrate on where they were going. 

The trail was taking them on a winding, meandering path through the alpine tundra, a long, low rise moving them closer and closer to the pass, the two mountains the ranger had pointed out rising up above them on either side. Dean couldn’t see any path up either mountain, and based on what the ranger said, suspected there wasn’t one. He really hoped that there wasn’t any need for them to go up the mountains themselves. He hadn’t brought any climbing gear, and really didn’t like the thought of puking off the top of a mountain four thousand metres above sea level, even if it would be a new and exciting entry in the list of weirdest places he’d ever vomited. At least there was little cover around them for a monster to be hiding in; the forest was well and truly behind them now,only the occasional bristlecone pine remaining. There were more rocks than anything, ranging in size from smaller boulders about the size of watermelons to ones that towered far above Dean’s head, erratics or the debris of some long-ago avalanche. They were the ones that made Dean nervous, his attention sliding from one to another, looking for any movement, any flicker of motion. The video had shown the creature moving  _ fast _ and it was putting Dean even more on edge than usual for a hunt—by the time he spotted it, it could already be too late. 

There was no sign of it though, the mountainside empty apart from the two of them. No tracks, no movement, no noise. The light had been steadily decreasing over the last hour, which wasn’t helping his ability to check the landscape for anything out of place. Eventually, Dean admitted to himself that he would need to start looking for somewhere to sleep for the night. He said as much to Castiel, who just nodded somberly. 

“I will guard you while you sleep,” he said, voice serious, and Dean really shouldn’t have found that as comforting as he did. He tried to remind himself that he barely knew the angel, still didn’t have any proof that he was what he said he was, if he was being honest when he said he was there to watch out for Dean. It didn’t really work though, and Dean found himself futilely repeating the exact same argument inside his head over and over again as he set up his tent and sleeping bag on a relatively flat patch of ground he’d found in the shadow of one of the larger boulders. 

Dean was too tired, and a bit too nauseous still, to bother cooking something real, and he ended up just swallowing down two granola bars instead. The pure silence of being somewhere so far from any city or town, any other people at all, stole away any attempt he might have made at conversation. Potential monsters aside, it was the kind of silence that was too precious, too vast to break. When he ended up sitting on the rock next to where Castiel was still standing, Castiel didn’t say anything either. They watched the sunset together, both of them staring up at the paintbrush strokes of purple, red, yellow, and orange streaking across the sky as evening turned into night, until there was no light left at all, just a dizzying sweep of stars, bright and white against the black blanket of the sky. Eventually with exhaustion tugging on his limbs, Dean waved an awkward, goodnight to Castiel before crawling inside his tent. He paused in the middle of zipping it shut, caught on the sight of Castiel, in that stupid tan trenchcoat, bathed in moonlight and staring out into the darkness. Watching over him. A distant memory flashed through Dean’s mind: his mother, decades ago, long before every chance he’d had at a normal life had burned to ash, telling him that angels were watching over him.  _ She probably meant it less literally _ , he thought with a smile, and zipped the entrance the rest of the way shut. 

He wasn’t sure what woke him at first, blinking awake to the darkness inside of the tent, staring up at the canvas above him, rippling slightly in the wind. He reached for the handle of the knife beside him anyways. A second later he realized what had woken him, what he was hearing: the sound of two distinct voices, the low ebb and flow of conversation. They were both male, deep and unrecognizable, too far away or too muffled by the fabric of the tent to fully reach his ears. He lay still for a moment longer, straining to make out what was being said, but it was futile: canvas and wind and distance all conspiring against him. He slid out of his sleeping bag, rocking up into a crouch as quietly as he could and tucking his gun into the back of his jeans. Knife in hand, he undid the zipper on the tent and stepped out into the night. 

Castiel and the stranger standing with him both turned to look at Dean as he emerged, their conversation coming to an abrupt halt. The sun was just beginning to breach the horizon, coating both men in a pale yellow glow. Like Castiel, the other man’s clothing was incongruous with their surroundings, a black pinstripe suit, white collared shirt and grey tie making him look more like a banker standing on the corner of a city street than anyone who had any business being in the middle of the mountains. He was balding, and what little hair remained was grey with age. He was shorter than Castiel, significantly shorter than Dean, and a little bit doughy looking, though the suit he was wearing was perfectly tailored to his body. The man’s eyes ran up and down Dean’s own body. Dean glanced at Castiel, who had a slightly pained look on his face, but didn’t seem alarmed. 

“So this is the sword,” the stranger said, turning back to Castiel. “Doesn’t look like much.” The pained expression on Castiel’s face deepened, but he didn’t say anything. The stranger grinned, glancing back at Dean. “Why don’t you go back to sleep,” he said, voice a mix of mockery and condescension that made Dean bristle. The dismissal was clear, made clearer when he didn’t even watch to see if Dean would obey.

“Castiel?” Dean said. “What’s going on?” Castiel didn’t say anything, and the stranger laughed. 

“I’m Zachariah,” he said. Castiel still hadn’t spoken and it was making Dean far more uncomfortable than he would have liked; dread unaccompanied by understanding. He did his best not to let it show on his face, though something told him that Zachariah knew how he was feeling anyways. 

“I’m Castiel’s commanding officer,” Zachariah added when Dean didn’t react. 

“Okay…” Dean said, drawing out the word, insolent, even as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He moved so his weight was balanced better, ready to fight.  _ Another angel.  _ “And you’re here because…?” 

“Castiel has been ignoring his orders to return to Heaven,” Zachariah said, looking at Castiel, who had regained his usual neutral blankness, his face an unfeeling mask. 

“I have not–” he began, voice stiff, but Zachariah waved him off, turning back to Dean. 

“Best of luck with your little,” Zachariah paused, making a gesture that seemed to encompass Dean, the mountain, maybe the whole world, “whatever,” he finished, reaching out to take hold of Castiel’s arm. 

“Wait–” Dean said, stepping forward, but between one blink and another, they both vanished, leaving Dean standing alone on the mountainside. 

“Mother _ fucker, _ ” Dean said, to absolutely no one. 

He stood there until the sun managed to drag itself a few more inches over the horizon, enough to send a beam straight into his eyes. He flinched, then sighed and turned back to his tent to pack it back up. At least he’d got most of a night’s sleep, before whatever the fuck that had just been. Dean frowned to himself as he packed with quick, efficient motions.  _ Was Castiel disobeying orders to be here on a hunt with me? Why? What were his orders then, if they weren’t to watch me? Or maybe he’d just been sent to check in on me, and then I kept him here, distracting him with how much of a disaster I am. That Castiel had decided that he couldn’t trust me alone, unsupervised, and had stayed.  _

That last thought made Dean’s stomach twist with something he didn’t care to think about, and he mentally shoved the entire mess aside. Whatever was going on there, it was a problem for another time. Having Castiel with him had been nice, had been reassuring, but it had been a false reassurance, a temporary balm that had had an expiration date from the start, even if Dean hadn’t known exactly when that date was. Dean should have known better than to take any measure of security or comfort from it: Castiel was an angel, with a Holy mission and divine purpose, and Dean was just a dumbass sinner who’s only purpose was to hunt and kill until he was hunted and killed.  _ And to look after Sammy, but you really fucked that one up didn’t you?  _ the voice inside of him added, and that thought was much harder to push away than the others. 

Both practice and training had Dean packed and ready to continue onwards before the sun had finished rising, and he shoved another granola bar in his mouth as he squared his shoulders and resumed his journey up the side of the mountain. It was colder than it had been the day before, despite the sun, the wind stronger, carrying with it the bite of snow off the mountains. Bent forward against the cold air blowing across the tundra, the watery yellow light of early morning his only company, he abruptly realized just how nice it had been to have Castiel with him the day before. The solid presence of the angel, the comfort of not being alone, of having someone on his six. He worked alone more often than he worked other hunters, but it wasn’t like he only worked alone, like he hadn’t had someone at his back at all since John… 

There was something about the mountains that took the loneliness and magnified it, the emptiness of the landscape reflecting the emptiness inside of his chest. The fear that accompanied it was easier in a lot of ways, more familiar: the low-level adrenaline of a hunt, the constant, inescapable knowledge that death might come for you between any two heartbeats and you had only yourself, your experience, and your training to rely on. The loneliness was harder, wasn’t something he’d been acclimatizing himself to since childhood. Back then, no matter what, he’d always had Sam, the single greatest constant in his life. Across cities and towns and states and hunts, hiding from child services and lying to cops and laughing under the covers together long after their dad had told them to go to sleep. He’d mapped his entire life, his entire purpose and existence, around the kid because he’d had nothing else, nowhere else to put his love, so he put it all on Sammy. Hell, maybe that was what drove Sam away in the end, maybe Dean had just been suffocating him, weighing him down with Dean’s neediness, his frantic and overwhelming drive to  _ take care of Sammy.  _

Dean let out a long, shuddering breath, and forced himself to concentrate. 

The worst kind of hunts were the ones with question marks in the middle of them. Sometimes they weren’t so bad – are there one or two vampires? will they be in this farm, or the one across the street? – but sometimes they were like this one, where all there was was the vaguest outline of  _ something  _ in the centre of a book filled with corpses. The only sign that it existed at all the bodies it left behind, the grieving family and friends, the empty spaces where people used to be. A brown blur on a video tape, a bloody and torn shirt. There wasn’t a clear path forward, no lore to read, no internet search to make, no obvious lair to search for. Just miles and miles of wilderness and somewhere within it, a predator, and the hunter hoping for it to mistake him for prey. It set Dean’s nerves alight, made it impossible to relax, and he tried not to think about what it would be like at night, now that Castiel wasn’t here anymore. That was a problem for much, much later. For now, all he could do is keep walking, and keep watching, and hope for the kind of luck that never graced a Winchester. 

The sun climbed steadily through the sky until it hung directly above him, making sweat bead at the base of Dean’s neck, turning the back of his shirt beneath his pack dark and wet. It hadn’t been a hard climb, but it had been long, and it was under that midday sun that he reached the crest of the pass. Dumping his pack on the ground, Dean let out a groan, stretching the soreness from his legs and back before looking around him. The view was incredible, and if he was anyone else, there for any other reason, he wouldn’t have been able to think about anything other than how beautiful it was: a seemingly endless, windswept landscape of flowers and shrubs spotted with granite boulders opening up to the distant green of the forest below. The same view greeted him up ahead, the pass lowering back into another swath of forest, the wilderness stretching out for miles and miles until it was eaten up by the horizon. On either side of him rose the two mountain peaks, grey and jagged, with snow beginning to coat the rough rock maybe a mile higher than he was currently standing. Certainly explained why it was still so cold—despite the sun and how much he had been sweating with exertion, now that was standing still Dean was already beginning to shiver. He untied the jacket he’d wrapped around his waist, shrugging it back on before opening up his backpack. He’d had enough of the granola bars, but wasn’t sure that he’d be able to get the camp stove lit with how strong the wind was. He made a noise of triumph when he found a package of beef jerky instead, sitting down on a nearby rock and continuing to scan his surroundings as he ate. He couldn’t see them, but the chirps and trills of what were probably more pika, or maybe marmots or squirrels, kept him company as he ate. He stayed where he was after he finished, relaxing with the heat of the sun against his skin, trying to decide where he should go next. He didn’t want to leave the pass, not with what the ranger had said, but he didn’t particularly like the idea of going up the mountains either. Just staying in place felt wrong, but he wasn’t sure if that had anything to do with any sort of hunter’s instinct or whether it was just his own drive for motion, his need to never sit still. 

He was still contemplating his options when he caught sight of movement on the slope below, where he’d come from. He went still, hand inching down until it could grab ahold of the blade strapped to his thigh, slowly freeing it from its sheath as his eyes tracked the figures moving towards him. There were two of them, not moving particularly fast, and seeming to follow the same winding trail he’d just walked. Still moving painfully slow, Dean got his feet under him, staying low and crouched, prepared for an attack. He steadied his breathing, clearing his mind of any thought other than the coming fight. The shapes drew closer, and closer… and Dean had to fight the urge to groan out loud in disappointment when the bright green and purple of two matching windbreakers coalesced out of the haziness of distance.  _ Fucking hikers,  _ he thought, annoyed and exhausted with himself and this whole hunt. He let himself collapse back onto the rock he’d been sitting on, putting his knife away and digging a bag of trailmix out of his pack instead. He watched the civilians grow nearer and nearer, returning their wave when they finally looked up and caught sight of him.  _ Fuckin’ awesome, _ he thought.

“Hey there!” the woman called out once they were within shouting range, her smile clear even at a distance. Dean gave her his very best ‘hello, fellow civilian’ smile of his own, regretting so much that he’d left his badge in the car. Would be nice to have something to flash these people to get them the hell off this mountain.

“Hey,” Dean said as the couple came to a stop. He scanned them—matching hiking poles, matching backpacks, matching jackets, matching boots—and just barely resisted the urge to make a face.  _ Jesus. _ The woman was short and stocky with black hair hanging over her shoulder in a long braid, dark brown skin and a lip piercing. The man was tall, blonde, and built like a telephone pole, though Dean supposed he had to be hiding some muscle under his clothes to make it all the way up here. “Nice day,” he added belatedly. 

“Sure is!” the man replied, looking around them as if he hadn’t previously realized where he was, as if the wilderness surrounding them was a total surprise. 

“You folks headed up the mountains?” Dean asked, mentally resigning himself to having to escort the civilians at least until they left the pass.  _ Though maybe the larger group will help lure out the monster,  _ he thought darkly. 

“Oh god no,” the woman said, laughing. “You couldn’t pay me to climb up one of those. No, we’re headed down through the pass.” 

“How about you?” the man asked.

“Same, actually,” he said, making sure to hesitate slightly before he spoke again. “Uh, would it be weird if I walked with you for a bit? You’re the first people I’ve seen in a couple days and it would be nice to spend some time with other humans for a bit.” He ended with a light chuckle, and waited. The couple exchanged a glance, but had apparently already decided Dean was harmless, because it didn’t take more than that for them to turn back to him, with welcoming smiles. 

“For sure!” the woman said, glancing down at the bag of trailmix still in his hand. He offered it up, and they both took a handful before he climbed to his feet. He caught the man giving his knife, the black sheath obvious against his jeans, a quick look, but he didn’t seem alarmed by it so Dean decided it was probably best not draw unnecessary attention to it by trying to make up an excuse. They were in the middle of nowhere after all, and he was travelling alone—it wasn’t strange to have a knife in those circumstances. Still, he was glad his gun was safely hidden. Putting his food away, he reshouldered his backpack before holding out a hand. 

“Dean,” he said, exchanging handshakes with Saanvi (firm, enthusiastic) and Rick (damp, also enthusiastic). 

Their enthusiasm extended to their conversational skills, which Dean was more than fine with—with Saanvi taking the lead and Rick walking next to Dean, he had to do very little other than hum at the right places. It let him keep most of his attention on scanning the pass, back and forth and back and forth. Travelling with civilians that he couldn’t tell to shut up was admittedly putting him slightly on edge, but it was far easier to let them think that he was a fellow hiker, let them continue with their admittedly brisk pace, than try and deal with the confusion or fear that would come from warning them that they might be minutes from a horrible and bloody death. That was a universally unpleasant and unproductive conversation, and so long as he could avoid it, all the better. They were making good time anyways, already halfway across the plateau between the bases of the two mountains, the downwards curve ahead of them becoming obvious as more and more of the forest on the other side began to poke up over the rise of the tundra. 

He couldn’t say afterwards what made him do it, if there was something he’d heard or some movement he’d spotted that had registered as  _ wrong _ on a level more base and primal than thought, but he was reacting to whatever it was before his brain had even finished processing it. He shoved Rick to the side first, and the man, surprised and top-heavy, easily toppled to the ground. Dean was already moving towards Saanvi, tackling her from the back. She went down with a surprised scream, more fear than pain. Dean’s breath got knocked out of him as her backpack hit his chest and stomach. 

He was still looking down at the back of Saanvi’s neck when something slammed into him, sending him flying. He didn’t have time to brace himself, hitting the ground hard and skidding on his stomach over plants and rocks until he hit a stone large enough to bring him to a painful stop, something in his side snapping. Probably the same ribs he’d already fractured.  _ Fuck,  _ he thought, allowing himself two seconds to just breath through the pain, then forcing himself upright and looking around. A couple hundred meters away, Rick was sitting up, watchingDean with a confused frown on his face. Saanvi was also beginning to recover from the shock of Dean tackling her; rolling onto her back and pushing herself up. Dean heard something hit the ground behind him. He jerked around to see his camp stove lying on the ground. His eyes went to the side of his backpack that he could just see over his shoulder, and with a jolt of fear he saw that there were four gouges in the side of it, so deep that the sleeping bag within it was shredded, feathers falling to the ground like snow. Dean spun back towards the civilians, hand scrambling for his gun. Saanvi was still on the ground, eyes wide with surprise and confusion, but Rick was staggering to his feet, anger beginning to overtake his own shock. 

“Hey!” he called towards Dean. “What the hell, man? Why’d y–” 

Rick’s words cut off with a gurgle, his eyes widening. There was a pause as they stared at him, expectant. His head slowly tipped forward, pulling Saanvi and Dean’s attention down with it, towards the five claws that had appeared there, pushing through his chest and making red bloom thick and wet on his jacket. Saanvi began screaming as Dean looked beyond Rick’s dying body to see the thing that had killed him. 

It was shaped like a man—two legs, two arms, a torso, a head—but that was where the resemblance ended. It was huge, easily eight feet tall and towering above Rick, affording Dean a horribly clear look at its entire physiology. Where the human leg bent forwards, its legs bent backwards, the bone of the reversed knee protruding so severely it looked like a sudden move might push it straight through the leathery brown skin covering it. Its feet were similar to the paws of any big cat, if the cat had no fur and about two extra joints in each digit, each uncomfortably long and dexterous protrusion capped with black claws. Its stomach was concave in a way that might suggest starvation and weakness were it not for the corded muscle clearly visible on its legs, its arms, across its chest and broad shoulders. Its arms seemed too long for its body, the one hanging downwards almost brushing the ground, the bent elbow of the one Rick’s corpse was still hanging from nearly level with its crotch where its genitals swung, oddly vulnerable and exposed on a predator otherwise built so tightly to its bones. 

But by far the worst part of it was its face. Dean had to assume that it operated on sound and smell alone since, though the smooth round curve of it’s skull was interrupted by two dips where eyes should be, the skin remained unbroken, a solid stretch of leather tight over unfilled eye sockets. Its nose was little more than two black holes in the flat skin of the centre of its face, barely the hint of a rise beneath them, and its ears were much the same – two sunken pits at the side of its head. Its mouth was open, and Dean didn’t know if it was by choice or if the creature simply couldn’t close it, its lower jaw swinging loosely back and forth, back and forth, dragging along with it rows of broken and dirty teeth and a short, cracked and blackened tongue. As Dean watched, it raised Rick’s body towards its head, and slowly closed its jaw around his neck, tearing out a chunk of flesh, a spray of blood smearing across its face and dripping down onto the ground. It began to chew, the hinge of its jaw sawing too far to the side with each meeting of its teeth, the motion slow and nauseating. Saanvi screamed again, and Dean and the monster both turned towards her at the same time. As Dean watched, her eyes widened even further as she immediately realized her mistake. 

The monster shook Rick’s body off of its claws, letting it fall to the ground with a sickening thud, but Dean was already moving, gun rising in front of him, squeezing the trigger as he strode forward. The first bullet skittered off of the curve of the creature’s skull with an ease that twisted Dean’s stomach, sending fear racing through his veins. He kept his breathing steady as he continued walking forward, aiming lower as he fired again. The second shot got the monster’s attention at least, though it didn’t seem to do any more than the first to hurt the creature, glancing off of its neck without a single mark to show for it. The thing was facing Dean now though, and he could see out of the corner of his eye Saanvi scrambling to her feet and beginning to back away.  _ Smart girl,  _ Dean thought. He was pretty sure she also had one of her hiking poles held out in front of her like a weapon, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off of the monster to check. The creature’s nostrils expanded and contracted as it searched for Dean’s scent amongst the other smells crowding the pass. Dean kept his eyes fixed on it, mind racing for what to do when it figured out exactly where he was. The bullets clearly weren’t able to break through its skin, and Dean had to assume that that wasn’t down to what the bullets were made of—he had a feeling that his silver knife would have just as much luck piercing the skin as his lead bullets had. Which meant his best bet was to go for the parts of the creature that lacked the protection of its leathery skin—mouth, nose, ears.  _ Fuck.  _

It was too fast, there was basically no way he was going to be able to do fucking anything except die if it got the chance to charge him, so he had to move  _ now.  _ It was already turning towards him, its jaw wide open, blood drooling down between its broken teeth in long, wet strings. It was letting out a low, reverberating moaning sound that made Dean’s stomach turn, and he could see the back of its throat constrict with each exhalation of the sound. Praying he was right, Dean pointed his gun directly towards the glimpse of vulnerable pink that lay behind that cracked and blackened tongue. The creature froze, nostrils wide as it finally caught Dean’s scent, and Dean squeezed the trigger as its muscles tensed towards movement.

The monster must have run straight into his bullet, because when Dean blinked, the creature was less than a hundred meters away, swaying slightly on its feet. It let out a confused, pained noise, and Dean watched as it raised clawed hands towards its throat. There was blood dripping from its mouth again, but it wasn’t human this time; dark brown like mud and quick like a spring flood, flowing over tongue and teeth as the creature sank down, unnatural legs bending backwards beneath it. Dean kept his gun carefully fixed on the wide hole of its mouth, but the creature didn’t do anything more than let out strangled, wet noises as it tried to breath around the bullet Dean had shot into the back of its throat. He had no idea if its skin was impenetrable from the inside. If the bullet had exited out the back of its head or if it had ricotcheded around its body, tearing it up completely from the inside. Either way, it only swayed back and forth once, twice, before it toppled over with a final, rattling breath. 

For a long minute, the only sound Dean could hear was his own heart pounding in his ears, and the rough breaths being torn from his lungs. Slowly, other things began to filter in through the fading adrenaline: the leaves on the plants nearest him rustling, the wind skidding across the pass, and finally the rough, panicked sounds of someone struggling to catch their breath. Dean looked up to find that Saanvi was still standing on the path, one of her hiking poles held in front of her like a baseball bat. He could see how hard she was shaking even from as far away as he was, her attention entirely focused on the body lying crumpled just a few meters from where she was standing. Swallowing, Dean braced himself for the worst conversation that came with this job, and began picking his way across the tundra back towards the path, giving a wide berth to the monster’s corpse. There was a growing pool of brown blood spreading out from beneath it, across the lichen-covered rocks, feathers from his destroyed sleeping bag catching and sinking in the thick liquid, rustling in the wind.

Saanvi still hadn’t moved by the time he’d reached the path again, which was probably for the best. Dean glanced at her, but dropped his pack and went to Rick’s body first. From the first touch of his hand against Rick’s shoulder, he knew that the other man was dead, but he rolled him over to check anyways, unsurprised when lifeless eyes stared back at him, the corpse's head lolling backwards with the motion. Saanvi made a low, pained noise, and Dean fought the urge to grimace.  _ Fuck,  _ he thought, eyes sliding to the massive holes that had been punched through Rick’s chest, the chunk missing from his neck. Nausea rolled through him. They were both so, so stupidly lucky to be alive right now. 

Laying Rick back down as gently as he could, Dean stood and walked towards Saanvi. It took a few seconds for her to pull her eyes away from where they were locked on Rick, and when she did she jerked backwards away from Dean. Her eyes were blown wide with fear, her breathing sharp and jittery, hands shaking even as she raised her walking pole more firmly in front of herself. Swearing to himself, Dean shoved his gun back in his pants so that he could hold his hands out in front of himself, palms forward. 

“It’s okay,” he said, and something like a laugh burst out of Saanvi’s mouth. Dean fought not to react. He fucking  _ hated _ this part. “Hey, you’re okay,” he said. “You’re safe, it’s dead.” 

“It’s dead?” Saanvi said, voice loud and high. “It’s  _ dead?  _ What the fuck was it! What the fuck did you– with the gun? And– and–” Her eyes slid behind him as she cut herself off, and Dean knew she was looking back at Rick. 

“Don’t,” he said, and her eyes returned to him. “Don’t look,” he said. “It’s not… you don’t want to remember him like this.” Saanvi’s mouth trembled, tears gathering in her eyes. 

“Remember him?” she repeated, voice cracking slightly in the middle. “Remember him? Rem– oh god he’s dead, he’s dead. Oh god–” Her voice turned into a pained moan at the end, her grip on the pole loosening as she looked past Dean again. Dean stepped into her line of sight, and her eyes snapped back to him. 

“Don’t look at him,” he repeated. “Look at me. You’re okay. It’s okay. You can put the pole down.” Saanvi looked down at the pole like she was surprised to find it in her hands. 

“I– what?” she said. 

“It’s safe now,” Dean said. “It’s okay, you can–”

Dean stopped talking.

There was a noise. 

A low, strange moaning noise, sliding its way across the tundra towards them. 

Dean watched as Saanvi’s eyes flicked to something behind him, and Dean could see renewed terror bloom in her eyes. Dean swallowed as adrenaline and fear rushed back through him. One of Dean’s hands moved backwards for his gun as he turned as slowly as he dared. 

Behind him, a second monster stood above the first, looking down at it with its unseeing face. The noise it was making sounded somehow mournful, grieving, though if pressed Dean wouldn’t be able to explain why, or what the difference was. It was rocking back and forth slightly, and as they watched it crouched on unnatural legs and stroked one of its horrible hands over the head of the other monster. Dean raised his gun, aimed it, but didn’t bother to pull the trigger. There was no point, not until he had a sightline on its mouth, the only thing he knew for sure worked against a monster. There were no second chances with things that moved this fast, and Dean ignored the voice that reminded him how impossibly lucky he’d been to kill even one. Softly, so softly he wasn’t sure that Saanvi would even hear him, Dean whispered:

_ “Run.” _

There was nothing but silence from behind him and then, the scrape of rock, the sounds of feet thudding against bare ground. 

Dean didn’t take his eyes off of the monster. It didn’t seem interested in them yet, was still gently touching the dead one. Dean swallowed. Maybe, maybe Saanvi would get far enough away. Maybe Dean would be a good enough distraction, that she would escape. It was the best he could hope for. Dean took a deep breath, making sure his feet were firmly planted. Then, suddenly, there was a new sound from behind him, a sound like beating wi–

“De–” was all Castiel got out before Dean was spinning towards him and pointing after Saanvi’s retreating form. 

“Get her!” he said. Castiel’s eyes widened. 

“D–” he tried again. 

_ “Get her!”  _ Dean repeated, voice rising, and Castiel didn’t say anything else, disappearing and then reappearing in front of Saanvi. Her cut off scream barely registered as he turned back to the monster. His heart thudded when he saw that it was now looking directly at him. This one was smaller, but not by much. Fear pounded through him, but at least Saanvi was safe, was for sure safe, not just a distant and hopeless wish from a man minutes from death. Whatever happened to him, Dean could face it with that knowledge held close to his chest. 

The monster was a predator,, a hunter in a purer sense than Dean could ever hope to achieve, and there wasn’t anything he could do but wait for her to decide exactly how she wanted Dean to die. Unlike the first monster, she didn’t seem particularly interested in doing him the favour of opening her mouth to give him something to aim at, her jaw instead wedged almost completely shut, affording him nothing more than the occasional glimpse of red and brown between broken and jagged teeth. Dean aimed his gun towards her mouth anyways, nothing else that he could do. Dean could see the moment she caught his scent, entire body snapping to attention, threat written in each shift of her limbs, each clench and release of her muscles. 

Dean squeezed the trigger on his gun and

Castiel’s expression was surprised as he looked down at the hole Dean’s bullet had made in his shirt and 

Behind him, she tensed, getting ready to leap forward and

“Cas, look out!” Dean yelled. 

It was almost too fast for him to track, the brown blur of the monster launching towards Castiel, the flash of silver as Castiel’s blade suddenly appeared in his hand as he spun. His arm swung upwards in a single smooth arc, dark brown blood appearing in its wake, droplets flicking off the tip as more flowed off the blade to coat Castiel’s hand, staining his shirtsleeve as he looked down at the body of the second monster. 

Castiel’s blade had split her nearly in two, a long, deep, smooth cut from gut to neck, the putrid smell of punctured organs filling the air, too strong for even the high mountain wind to smooth away. Dean felt dizzy, swaying slightly as he watched Castiel slowly lower his arm until his blade was hanging down by his side, blood dripping from it to the bare ground. Dean’s body was having trouble letting go of the certainty of death, the sudden removal of danger. Dean blinked once, twice, and then Castiel was standing in front of him. Dean glanced down, but the blade was gone, as was any sign of the monster’s blood and the hole torn through the fabric of Castiel’s shirt by Dean’s bullet. 

“Huh,” Dean said. 

“Dean,” Castiel said, the familiar worried gravel of his voice far more comforting than it should have been. His hands came up to hover awkwardly beside Dean’s upper arm, as if he wasn’t sure if he should touch Dean or not. “You’re hurt,” he said, and Dean shook his head. 

“Nah,” he said. “It’s nothing. I’m just a bit,” he raised his hand, waving it in a little circle, “punchdrunk.” Castiel didn’t lose his worried look, and Dean belatedly realized it may have been more reassuring if he hadn’t made that gesture with the hand holding his gun. Dean looked away from Castiel’s uncomfortably sincere expression to flick the safety back on his gun before tucking it back into his pants. “Seriously,” he tried again, giving Castiel the best smile he could summon. “I’m fine,” he said. The smile must have been as unconvincing as it felt, because Castiel’s expression still didn’t change. 

“You called me Cas,” the angel said, and Dean squinted at him. 

“What?” he asked. 

“You called me Cas.” 

“Huh,” Dean said, thinking back. “Yeah, guess so.” He shrugged. “Easier than Castiel I guess. Promise I won’t do it again unless one of us is about to die.” He grinned, but Castiel had a weird look on his face. 

“I don’t mind,” he said, words stilted. 

“Uh,” Dean said eloquently. 

“If you want to,” Castiel said, pausing awkwardly, looking almost pained. “Call me…” he trailed off, and Dean wasn’t able to stop the slow smile that cracked open his face. 

“Yeah?” he said. “You want me to call you Cas?” Casti–  _ Cas _ gave him a look like he was already regretting having said anything. It made Dean smile wider, something tense and terrified inside his chest finally releasing as he let out a long breath. He glanced around the plateau, taking in the two dead monsters, Rick’s body, his absolutely destroyed pack. “Shit,” he said, then glanced towards Cas. “You gonna help me clean this up?” he asked. Cas gave him an indecipherable look. 

“Yes,” he finally said. 

“Thank god,” Dean said, ignoring the small frown Cas gave him when he said  _ god.  _ “I don’t know how the fuck I’d get rid of the monsters on my own.” He paused, then looked at Cas, curious “What did you do with Saanvi?” he asked. Cas gave him a blank look. 

“I took her home,” he said. 

“Oh,” Dean said. He’d been expecting Cas to say he’d taken her to the bottom of the mountain or something. “Where was home?”

“Kanpur,” Cas said. Dean blinked. 

“Kanpur…  _ India _ ?” he asked. “You took her to  _ India _ ?” His voice rose in pitch in a way he wasn’t exactly proud of but seriously. What the fuck. Cas blinked back at him, uncomprehending. 

“Yes,” he said. “It seemed like the right thing to do, with someone who had just experienced such a severe shock. To take her to her family.” Dean’s mouth opened and shut a couple of times before he could figure out something to say. 

“You flew to India and back,” he said, “in what, thirty seconds?  _ Thirty seconds? _ ”

“Twenty,” Cas said, sounding offended. 

“Jesus Christ,” Dean said, ignoring Cas frowning again. “Twenty seconds.” 

“I do have six wings,” Cas said, back to the same familiar flatness, though Dean thought it sounded almost teasing now. He turned and began walking back towards the body of the second monster.  _ Six wings,  _ Dean thought, and shook his head. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you as always to helen for being the literal best!!!


	12. Ab inferis excitandus, 2002

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: graphic descriptions of injuries and torture, explicit description of self-harm, child death, implied rape and sexual assult, implied underage sex work, mentions of physical child abuse, child neglect, and suicidal ideation.
> 
> non-explicit chapter summary included in the endnote if anyone needs to skip this one.

**Ab inferis excitandus, 2002**

_ Sam was laughing, running behind Dean, who kept glancing over his shoulder with a wide gap-toothed smile. He’d lost three of his teeth the week before, and Sam still wasn’t used to seeing all the holes in his grin. The sun was warm and comforting against his skin though, and the scent of freshly mown grass wrapped around him as they rounded the corner of the trailer, Dean calling after him to keep up. Sam laughed again, trying to pick up speed even though he was already running as fast as he could, his sneakers slapping against the cracked sidewalk. They dodged around a woman, registering nothing more than a vague impression of a long blue skirt and a few curse words shouted after them before she was forgotten, disappearing behind them.  _

_ “Come on Sam!” Dean said as he took a final turn, pointing them in the direction of home. “Keep up!” Sam was trying, his legs pumping as he ran as fast as he could, and he began to feel something like fear creeping up his chest as Dean pulled further and further away from him, his voice becoming more distant every second, his longer legs easily outpacing Sam’s. “Come on!” Dean said again, but Sam could barely hear him anymore, could barely see him.  _

_ “Dean!” he shouted. “Dean, wait! Wait for— _

Sam screamed. The feeling of hot metal slicing open his skin sent shockwaves of pain through his body. The blade pushed into him slowly enough that he could almost hear the sound it made as it hit one of his ribs, the scrape of it dragging over the bone before it was pulled downwards, tap tap tapping over one, two, three more ribs before it was finally pulled from his skin. Black spots danced in his vision as a soft voice murmured in his ear, though the throb of the fresh wound made it all but impossible to focus on the words. The voice was deep, the accent strange and impossible to place, as though the language that had first pressed through those vocal cords was one no human mouth had used in thousands of years. Maybe that was why he couldn’t understand, couldn’t track the syllables as a hot breath blew them across his cheek. The voice repeated them, sending the words winding through his ear and into the furthest corners of his mind, searching for a place where he was capable of anything other than feeling the pain that radiated from his back, leeching all conscious thought away. Finally, the words found the small part of him that wasn’t yet stripped of thought, of understanding, and he heard the voice speak, saying his name, saying

_ “Sam!” His dad’s voice was a harsh snap, the sound of it as familiar as the eye roll it elicited. Not that John could see it behind the book Sam was holding up to his face. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’m not saying it again.”  _

_ “Yeah fucking right,” Sam said, but he kept his voice quiet enough that John couldn’t hear it, though he looked at Sam through narrowed eyes when Sam finally pulled the book away from his face and tossed it down onto his bed. Dean was already outside of course, probably already sitting in the front seat of the Impala, itching to get going. Dad’s perfect soldier. Not like Sam, who intentionally dragged his feet even as he picked up the gun his dad had left for him on the kitchen table, shoving it into the holster tucked along his ribs. His dad watched him the whole time, gaze so heavy that Sam could almost feel it against his skin. He grabbed his jacket, shrugging it on over his unbuttoned shirt, and didn’t say anything when he brushed past his dad. John had apparently decided that getting Sam out of the house was all the fight he wanted to have with his youngest at that moment, because he didn’t say anything either. Sam could hear the sound of him closing and locking the door behind them as he headed up the sidewalk toward where Dean, as predicted, was already sitting waiting in the Impala. He was looking at something in his lap, probably a map or something. Dean avoided reading the lore books that Dad dumped on them as much as possible, always fucking with Sam’s hair and saying something about leaving the reading to the geeks. The car door creaked in protest when Sam yanked it open. He slid into the backseat, the sound of his dad repeating his name, warning clear in his tone, the only thing stopping him from slamming the door shut behind him. The back seat was cramped, his knees pressing up against the back of the front seat, and Sam thought, not for the first time, that it wasn’t fair that Dean got the front and Sam always got shoved into the back. Dean used to sit in the back with him, when they were younger, when they still talked about everything and Dean didn’t go off with Dad and leave him alone. But that was a long time ago now, and Sam felt stupid for missing it, even if only for a second. The car shifted, the suspension settling as his dad got into the driver’s seat. Dean looked over at John, bringing the car to life with a low growl.  _

_ “Do you thi– _

There were words carved into his thighs. Sam stared at them, swaying. Back and forth and back and forth. He knew he should be upset, should feel something, but the concept of emotions was as distant to him as the sky, the deep gouges still panting blood that ran down the curve of his legs to drip onto the floor. He could see glimpses of white where the blade had cut through fat. Or maybe it was bone. They seemed deep enough for it. There was a razor in his hand, covered in blood. Sam wondered if that meant that he had been the one to make these cuts. He didn’t know, couldn’t remember anything other than the slow slide into awareness just seconds earlier, awareness that still hadn’t managed to coalesce into any sense of reality. He was sitting in a chair, no idea how he’d gotten there, no idea how long he’d been there, and though he couldn’t feel any bindings holding him in place, he still didn’t seem to be able to get himself to move. Locked in place by exhaustion—or something else. Himself, maybe, too fearful of the cost of freedom to try and chase it. His awareness of himself seemed to swing in and out of existence as he stared down at the bloody mess that had been made of his legs. It was almost impossible to read the language written there, the words crossing over each other in places, some so shallow they were almost completely hidden under the blood coating all of his skin, some so deep they didn’t seem like they could possibly join with any of the others to form a letter at all. They jumped from thigh to thigh too, sentences leaping across the gap like it didn’t even exist, like his entire body was a single continuous canvas of flesh and bone. 

He stared at it for a long time before the words finally coalesced, as much the slow return of memory as his eyes managing to draw each cut together into letters, then words. Vague flashes of him repeating the words to himself, again and again and again, desperate and pleading and doomed from the start. Hunched over, frantically cutting, uncaring of how deep or shallow the razor slideach time so long as the words managed to escape from his fingers, the blade a desperate bid for peace, to ease the maelstrom swirling inside of him, a single sentence beating itself against the inside of his skull over and over again in its longing for escape. He whispered the words again, a hollow and scraping noise, his voice lost somewhere in the frantic destruction of his body. 

_ Ferrum ferro ab utero bestiae viscera Mariae ducam plaga mundus ardebit cum eis _ , he mouthed. The words tasted like a benediction, a forgiveness he did not deserve and would not accept. There was nothing holy about this salvation anyways; the words passed through him in search of desecration, his body a black church anointing its parishioners with ash and bone. An abominate act of wretched supplication at an altar slick with viscera and mud.

The iron from the heart of the beast and the steel from the womb of Mary will lead the slaughter, and the world will burn with them. 

_ Dean, standing next to him at a bus stop, trying not to cry as he handed him an envelope full of cash, explaining that he’d maxed out the cash withdrawal on every card he’d had as Sam just stared at him.  _

_ “You better take it Sammy,” Dean said, voice cracking, “you better take it, I _

Sam couldn’t remember if he’d taken it or not. Why wouldn’t he have, he wondered. Dean had loved him, had only wanted what was best for Sam. Had still been trying to take care of him even while Sam was betraying him, even while Sam was breaking his heart. It had been so much worse than leaving John, so much worse because Dad had shoved him out of the trailer with the kind of words that let him know that he didn’t have a home anymore, that there was no past for him, only the future. Dean though. Dean hadn’t rejected him, hadn’t thrown him away. He had been reaching out. Offering Sam something that would last forever, a string to guide himself back to his brother, back to his home if he ever needed it. He’d stared at the money, and then looked at Dean, and then he’d… he’d… 

There was a sound, like dripping water, distant and steady. He counted drops for a while until he found himself breathing in time with the sound, a liquid metronome to time his body against. It seemed to be getting louder. Maybe. Or– yes? He couldn't be sure what was real anymore, his mind playing tricks on him the longer he spent with nothing to orient his reality around. He knew he was  _ somewhere _ . There was something solid and hard pressing against his body, roughly scraping against his chest, his legs, his face. He was hot, too hot, sweating in the darkness, and he didn’t know where he was. He let his head roll to one side, and then the other, but there was nothing there, just more impossible darkness, the kind he’d only ever

_ cave, and he stumbled slightly, cursing under his breath as they picked their way over the shattered remains of what had once been a door, or a giant stone, or maybe had never been anything at all but had still somehow kept the monster contained for hundreds of years. It was free now though, leaving during the day to hunt, dragging locals screaming and crying back to its caves at night, returning to the darkness so complete that Sam knew if he turned off his headlamp he wouldn’t be able to tell if his eyes were open or not. The tunnel was getting narrower, Sam’s breaths coming faster as the rock closed in on him. He could see Dean up ahead, turning himself sideways to fit, and Sam didn’t know if he could _

fit inside of him perfectly, like it was always meant to be there, always meant to find its home, snug and safe, between the bones of his hand. There were a couple inches of blade still standing free above the top of his skin, glinting in the flickering firelight. A perfect match for the inches buried in the wood below below his palms. The handle was black and strangely textured, like an antler. But if the handle was an antler, Sam was certain that whatever it had come from was much older, and much more dangerous, than any elk or moose he could ever have run into in the mountains. 

There was a matching knife through his other hand, pinning him to the table and stopping him from lifting his hands up. Stopping him from picking up the cutlery that sat next to them, the white napkin beneath the silver knife and fork slowly turning red. The food in front of him smelled amazing. His stomach rumbled, aching with hunger as he stared down at it: mashed potatoes and gravy and some sort of meat, greyish black in a way that made his stomach turn. Not that it would stop him, if he was free, if he could move his hands. He was so fucking hungry, couldn’t remember the last time he’d been allowed to eat. He glanced up, and saw Azazel watching him. His expression was blank, impassive, and Sam didn’t know what he wanted Sam to do, if he wanted him to do anything at all or if this was just another small torment. His palms were wet with his own blood, though not as much as he thought there should have been, not as much as should flow from wounds like these. The fire behind him was reflecting off of Azazel’s eyes, making the gold dance. It was beautiful, in a way that few things were in this place, and Sam found himself staring without really realizing what he was doing, only catching himself when a slow smile curled its way over Azazel’s face. 

“Aren’t you hungry Samael?” Azazel asked, his voice quiet but his words unmistakable. Sam looked back down at the food, his stomach cramping with hunger.  _ Yes. _ “It’s very wasteful, you know, not to eat the food you’ve been given. Ungrateful too.” Sam swallowed. Azazel’s voice hadn’t changed, but Sam recognized a threat when he heard one. Sam briefly considered just leaning down and shoving his face into the food. Not like he had any dignity left to lose, not after everything Azazel had seen him do. Had forced him to do. He knew better though, knew that that wasn’t what Azazel wanted. If he wanted to see Sam debase himself, he would have picked something far, far more humiliating. No, today’s lesson was about pain. 

Sam took a deep breath, impossibly, hopelessly attempting to brace himself. He started with his left hand. The first two inches went easy, the knife sliding through his flesh the short distance upwards, just a couple of inches worth of pain before the handle was snug against the back of his hand. The blade below, free of its former flesh casing, was now coated with his blood. The small puddle of it on the table joined everything else in reflecting and refracting the firelight. 

Sam paused, looking at the spot where the metal blade disappeared into the wooden table. He didn’t know how deep it went into the table, how many inches he had to pull out to free himself. When Azazel had told him to sit and put his hands flat on the table, he hadn’t known what was coming, wasn’t watching to see how long that first blade had been before it had been slammed through his hand and into the wood below. Through the haze of pain, throat raw with the way he’d screamed, he couldn’t remember the second one either. It wasn’t like it made a difference either way—he didn’t have any option but to obey—and all he could do was hope that it wasn’t so firmly embedded that the knife wouldn’t move, that he would need to pull the handle through the wounds in his hands instead. He swallowed, and before he could think about it anymore,  _ yanked  _ upwards as hard as he could. The angle wasn’t ideal, and he didn’t really have any leverage, but he’d been regaining muscle mass the last couple of weeks, obedience rewarded with food and training in how to give pain rather than receive it. He closed his eyes in relief when he felt the blade begin to move upwards with his hand, and not downwards through it. He continued to pull. The handle was pressed tight against his skin, denting the flesh and worrying at the wound. The movement widened the cut, sending fresh blood running down the blade. Sam grit his teeth against a scream. He refused to give Azazel the satisfaction, or the excuse to punish him further. He kept his eyes fixed on where more and more of the metal was being freed from the table, bit by bit rising from where it had been entombed within the wood. By the time the blade finally jerked free, his breathing had become shallow with pain, and his arm shook with effort. He gasped for air, raising his hand and sending the blood running down his forearm instead. He wanted to wait, wanted to give his heartbeat time to calm, wanted to let the fog of pain encasing his head clear, but he knew better than to try. Instead, he put the tip of the blade back against the tabletop, and pushed down this time, watching as the entire length of the knife slowly passed through his hand until only the tip remained inside of him, a scant few centimeters that weren’t nearly enough to keep the knife in place when he shook his hand, making the blade fall to the table with a dull noise. He glanced at Azazel, but his expression was still impassive. 

He bit his lip as he looked back to the other knife, feeling the weight of Azazel’s eyes on him. He knew what the easier option was, the one he wanted to take: to wrap his blood-slicked hand around the handle of the second knife and pull it straight through him, easy as breathing. He also knew that there was no way that that was the path Azazel wanted him to take. Azazel liked symmetry, but more than anything else he liked pain, whether it was Sam’s or someone or something else’s. He swallowed, allowing himself a final deep breath before repeating the same procedure on the second blade. It was easier the second time, in that he knew exactly what to expect, how long the blade was, how deeply it was buried. It was harder, in that the pain radiating from his other hand was a constant throbbing distraction. Harder, in that his body was already intimately familiar with the procedure, and instinctively shied away from the pain it knew was about to come. Finally, that knife too was thudding onto the table, leaving both of Sam’s hands free, if soaked in blood and shaking so hard he could only hope that Azazel wouldn’t want him to do anything else with the knives. He looked over at Azazel, and shivered when he saw that he was now smiling, the kind of smug, satisfied grin that let Sam know he’d succeeded (done what Azazel wanted, obeyed his unspoken order), that let him know he’d lost (a little bit more of who he was, a little bit more of who he had been). 

“Good job,” Azazel said, and then nodded towards Sam’s plate. “Eat,” he said, and picked up his own cutlery, turning to his plate. Sam watched with glassy eyes, wondering if the demon even needed to eat or if it was all just for show, before he finally turned back to the food sitting in front of him. His body screamed in pain when he picked up the knife and fork that had been resting on either side of the plate, but he ignored its protests, curling his hands around the handles of each, cutting a small square off of the meat and taking a bite. It tasted like ash. Sam eagerly swallowed it like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. 

_ Dean slammed in the front door, making Sam jump, hand already reaching for the gun under the couch before he registered that it was his brother who was now angrily kicking off his boots, locking the door like it had personally wronged him. He was still careful not to disturb the salt lines, and that careful pause in the tantrum would have been funny if it weren’t for how stark the anger on Dean’s face was, a red flush mingling with the new bruise on his cheekbone.  _

_ “Dean?” Sam asked, standing up, but his brother walked past him without saying a word, heading down the hallway and out of sight. Sam heard the distant slam of the bathroom door. He nervously looked back at the pile of Dean’s boots, the soles grimy with the salt and gravel of the city. There were no answers to be found there, so he followed Dean’s path all the way to the closed door of the bathroom. He could hear muffled swearing, Dean’s voice catching like he was trying not to cry, and Sam’s stomach lurched at the sound. He tapped on the door, gentle and tentative, so quiet that if it was someone else, they might not have heard it. Dean wasn’t someone else though, and the sounds of him swearing cut off immediately.  _

_ “Go back to your homework Sammy,” Dean said, and if Sam didn’t know better, he would have said that Dean sounded fine, like nothing was wrong.  _

_ “No,” Sam said. “Dean, what happened? What’s the matter?”  _

_ “Nothing,” Dean said, “seriously Sam, fuck off.” Sam was fifteen, and about as stubborn as a mule. He just stood there, silent and waiting, until finally there was a heavy sigh on the other side of the door, and it cracked open to reveal his brother’s face, still flushed red. The bruise wasn’t too bad up close, certainly not half as bad as some of the shit both of them had gotten from Dad, or from training, much less hunting. But unlike those bruises, Sam didn’t know what had caused this one, and it sent anxiety shooting through him.  _

_ “What happened?” Sam asked again, and Dean gave him a look that was exhausted beyond his years.  _

_ “Please, Sammy,” he said, “not now.” Sam hesitated, the genuine plea in Dean’s voice almost enough to break him, to get him to leave and go back to his homework, before he remembered that his brother was hurt. His brother had gotten hurt, and he didn’t know how. So instead he just stood there, staring at his brother until finally Dean sighed again and let go of the door, stepping back into the bathroom to finish what he’d been doing before Sam had interrupted him, which turned out to be picking gravel out of the palms of his hands. Sam didn’t hesitate to step close to him, pushing his hands away and taking hold of his wrists to get a better look for himself. He only let go of Dean long enough to pull the first-aid kit out from under the sink, opening it and grabbing out the tweezers. Dean let him, just stood there as Sam began carefully pulling out each stone, one by one, dropping them on the countertop. Sam didn’t bother to ask again, was beginning to pull together a picture in his mind anyways. John had been gone for two weeks longer than he’d said he would be. Dean hadn’t been able to find a job willing to hire a high school dropout with no references or documented work experience. They’d split the last frozen pizza last night.  _

_ It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, but Sam felt anger burn in his stomach anyways, though he made sure to keep his eyes fixed on Dean’s hands, avoiding letting his brother see the emotion written on his face. By the way Dean sighed, Sam knew that his brother had figured it out, the same way Sam had figured him out. They knew each other too well, had lived in each other’s pockets their whole lives.  _

_ “Fucker stiffed me,” Dean finally muttered, and Sam bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything he’d regret. He switched his attention to Dean’s other hand. “I was… and then he shoved me, and I couldn’t get back up before he fucking drove away.” Sam kept his mouth shut. He knew Dean didn’t like that Sam knew as much as he did, knew that he would have kept it from him forever if he could. He hadn’t had the chance to though, not with the way they lived, the evidence of how far Dean would go for his brother already written across billions of the little moments that made up their lives long before the first time Dean had handed him a handful of cash and avoided Sam’s eyes when he’d asked how Dean had gotten it.  _

_ “I can get money,” Sam offered. From the corner of his eye, he watched Dean shake his head.  _

_ “How’re you gonna do that, huh?” Dean asked. “No lawns around here for you to mow, genius.” Sam snorted, pulling the last stone from Dean’s palm. His brother kept his hands held out obediently as Sam poured hydrogen peroxide over them, only hissing slightly at the burn. Sam grabbed a roll of gauze and a couple of bandages next, ignoring Dean’s muttered protests about wasting supplies.  _

_ “It’s SAT season, remember?” he said as he wound the gauze around Dean’s hand, fixing the first bandage in place. “You should have asked me before you went out, I would have told you… I’m taking three tomorrow, and I should be able to get more next week too.” There was a pause, and then Dean laughed.  _

_ “Fuck, you really are a geek huh? How do I always forget that.” When Sam glanced up at him, Dean was grinning, and Sam shook his head, smiling.  _

Sam sometimes wondered if he was dead. 

It would make sense, he thought. The life that the Winchesters led, the things they hunted, the places they stayed, the dubious friends John made. Endless possibilities for injury and dismemberment and death. He’d almost died four times before his eighteenth birthday, Dean probably twice that, and John had always seemed to only still be alive through sheer force of will. No one ever made it out of hunting alive, no one  _ left _ hunting, so the idea that something had killed him before he had the chance to even try… well, there was a reason that John had always made jokes about Winchester luck while Sam and Dean were growing up, ones that got increasingly dark and bitter as the years had passed.

Or maybe it was more ordinary than that. Maybe he’d gotten hit by a truck, electrocuted by faulty wiring, fallen down a staircase. Any of a hundred mundane accidents that could happen to anyone, funny only in contrast to how dangerous his life actually was. 

Or… or maybe he’d done it himself, maybe he’d done it on purpose. He’d thought about it often enough, though he’d kinda always figured he’d never be brave enough to actually do it.

And then, however it  _ had _ happened, because he was foul and filthy and rotted all the way to his core, he’d ended up here. There had been some part of him that was just born wrong, damned from conception, and he’d known that long before Azazel had first said it to him, known it down to his bones. It was why he sometimes felt good when he was cut into, why the sounds of other people screaming didn’t bother him anymore, why he’d begun to crave the sweet iron they would pour down his throat. Why he would sometimes lean into it when Azazel pressed close to him and whispered about prophecy and destiny and how Sam had killed his mother, broken his father, cursed his brother, arching toward the demon with breath that caught and broke in his lungs, his bones ringing with the truth of each word. 

_ Her name was Jess, but he’d never met her. He still watched her burn on a ceiling, blond hair ringed with fire as someone that sounded like him yelled her name, face smeared with her blood.  _

Sam knew what the dripping noise was now. He didn’t know how he had ever been confused about it, except that maybe he hadn’t wanted to think about it, hadn’t wanted to know. There was a laugh from behind him, and then he felt a hand press against his back, just below his shoulder blade. He didn’t scream, didn’t think he could even if he tried. The way his throat ached, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to make another sound ever again. When he tried to swallow, he tasted blood. 

There was light now, from behind him. Distant and glowing against the rock. Fire. Was that why it was still so hot? He couldn’t decide if it was better or worse than when it was cold, when his breath would fog in front of his face and shivers would wrack his body, tearing at whatever wounds decorated his skin with every jolt that shuddered through him. A noise, close, getting closer, pulled him out of his head. The sound of feet, moving over rock. He rolled his head to the side, towards the noise. The rock dragged against his forehead at the motion, scraping against his skin, but it was nothing, a pain so small it barely registered as he trained swollen eyes on the dark shape standing next to him. He blinked, and it slowly coalesced into a woman, petite with dark brown hair, grinning at him. She was beautiful, even when she blinked and her eyes became dark pits, empty and soulless. Merihem, he remembered. 

“Samael,” she said, voice cheerful and cruel. “You look like you’ve been having fun.” She pressed her hand more firmly into his back, and Sam’s vision greyed out for a second as it pushed him forward slightly, toes sliding across the slick ground beneath him, barely touching it. The manacles holding him against the wall, the only thing keeping him upright, rattled as he went. When his vision came back, he could hear that the dripping had sped up. She grabbed his chin, smearing his own blood across his skin, wet and hot. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’ll heal. It’ll all heal.”  _ No,  _ Sam thought.  _ No, don’t let it heal. Let me die.  _ She laughed again, like she could hear the desperate thought as it travelled sluggishly through his head. Her voice was like an anchor binding him to reality, forcing him to stay aware of every bright spot of pain on his body. 

There were so many of them. 

He wondered if there was even a single piece of him that was still unbroken, inside or out. He didn’t even remember what had caused them, what he’d done to earn them. Didn’t know if the ache in his arms was from them being held above his head or if it was something else. Didn’t know if the bruising on his chest was from being pressed against the ground—a heavy body on top of him, keeping him pinned down, strong enough to force him no matter how hard he struggled, how desperately he tried to get away—or if it was from his entire body hitting the wall over and over again with the force of every slash of hard leather against his back. He remembered a deep, burrowing voice in his ear telling him about how normally whips were made from cattle leather but this one had been made special for him, that it was from a human and didn’t Sam want to know who it was from? Whose skin was splitting his own?  _ No,  _ Sam had thought, but the voice told him anyways, and he would have prayed that it was lying if he could remember how to. If the holy words didn’t burn crawling their way out of his throat.

“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae,” the voice had whispered, and Sam felt his body light up like there was a fire burning beneath his skin. It had laughed when Sam whimpered, ran gentle hands down Sam’s bare sides before pressing into him again. “See?” it had whispered. “You’re not even human. Never were.” 

Merihem let go of his face, fingertips painting blood down his neck, settling over the ring of bruises lingering there. 

“I always thought you’d be more impressive,” she said, her grip tightening. A strangled whimper forced its way from Sam’s abused throat. “I guess you’re still being forged though.” 

_ Dean was crying as Dad laid him down on the couch, and Sam couldn’t help the stream of terrified questions pouring from of his mouth even though he could see the blood soaking through Dean’s shirt, could see the way that his dad was swaying too, like it was only stubborn determination that had allowed him to get him and his eldest from the car and into the house in the first place.  _

_ “Get the first aid kit,” his dad said, standing up before immediately stumbling back down, landing heavily on the floor next to the couch. He looked at Sam, but Sam could tell he wasn’t seeing him any more, not really, his eyes glazed and unfocused. Now that he wasn’t carrying Dean Sam could see the tears in his own shirt, the red stain leaching through the fabric.  _

_ “Dad—” Sam said, but his dad’s eyes were sliding shut. Panic shot through Sam like a gunshot, pulse rabbit quick in his ears as he looked between his brother and his dad. He didn’t wait any longer, just ran into the bathroom, almost falling as the mat slid across the tiles under his feet, banging open the cabinet and grabbing the box there. His dad didn’t open his eyes when Sam returned and Dean didn’t answer when Sam said his name, though Sam could tell he was still conscious by the whimpers slipping from his mouth, tears still tracking down the curve of his cheeks. He swallowed, opening the box and staring at the supplies inside, fear tightening his throat at the sight of the familiar collection of needles and bandages and drugs. Dean inhaled sharply, and Sam forced himself back into motion. He abandoned the kit for a moment in favour of pushing up Dean’s shirts, apologizing over and over again when the movement had Dean blinking open eyes glazed with pain.  _

_ “Dad…” Dean said. Sam just shook his head, grabbing the half-drunk bottle of water off of the coffee table and pouring it over Dean’s stomach. Nausea surged through him when he got a look at the claw marks scoring his brother’s skin. He glanced at his dad, but the other man was still unconscious. “Dad,” Dean repeated, more urgently, and Sam tried to hush him even as he turned back to the kit, picking out a pair of gloves and pulling them on with shaking hands. He didn’t know how bad his dad was injured, knew he should check, should figure out which one of them he actually needed to take care of first, but he just couldn’t, couldn’t make himself look away from Dean, couldn’t stop the pounding of his heart telling him Dean first, Dean first, Dean first. He apologized to his brother, then pushed a finger inside of the worst of Dean’s injuries. Dean screamed, but that didn’t matter because they weren’t too deep, they hadn’t pierced his organs, he was going to be okay, he was going to be okay. Sam kept repeating that to himself as he turned and picked up a needle with blood-stained fingers, trying to force himself to stop shaking. He couldn’t do this if he was shaking.  _

_ “Okay,” he said to himself. “Okay, you’ve got this, you’ve practiced this, you’ve got this.” He took a deep breath, and turned back to his brother.  _

Sam knew it was sick, knew he shouldn’t lean into the touch of hands that had been taking him apart hours before, that would carve into his skin again soon enough. But he couldn’t help it, the touch of the fingers, warm against his freezing skin, making him move closer. The words spoken to him were Sumarian, and he wondered when he’d begun to understand the language, when he’d learned to recognize it, but if it had been a lesson he’d been taught he couldn’t remember it. Yellow eyes stared into his own, hands cupping his face. 

“You know what you are Samael?” Azazel asked. Sam shook his head. 

“You’re my weapon,” he said, rubbing his thumbs against Sam’s cheekbones. “You’re the one I’ve been waiting for, all of these centuries.” He leaned forward, pressing scorchingly hot lips against Sam’s forehead, and Sam’s eyes slid shut. “You’ll carve the world open,” he said, and Sam shuddered against the truth written in those words. 

“I’m not,” he said, but the words were weak, empty. “I won’t.” 

“Oh Samael,” he said. “You al

_ ways were meant to be like this, did you know that Sammy?” Dean asked, idly picking up a scalpel from the table, spinning it between his fingers. When he looked up at Sam, his eyes were a familiar black, the same colour they’d been for Sam’s whole life.  _

_ “I know,” Samael said, because he did know. They’d talked about it since they were kids, him and Dean whispering together under the covers while their dad was off somewhere pursuing his doomed revenge. Completely focused on his dead wife, completely oblivious to what lived inside of his own sons. Sam watched as Dean circled the woman they’d tied to the chair, her eyes wide with fear as she tracked Dean’s slow movements. He enjoyed the contrast of the ordinary suburban kitchen with the tools Dean had laid out, the instruments worn with years of use but no less deadly. Dean had always kept careful care of his weapons after all, even when they were still with John, even when they were still pretending. Sam leaned forward, the wooden kitchen chair creaking beneath him. They’d shoved the rest of the furniture to the side, to give Dean enough room to work.  _

_ “Are you gonna cut her up for me?” he asked his brother, and Dean looked up at him with a grin. The woman whimpered behind her gag.  _

_ “Sammy,” Dean said. “You know I always give you everything you want.” Sam smiled, happiness sparking in his chest. This was how it was always meant to be, what he was made for. Him and Dean, together, both of them doubly, deliciously damned, free to—  _

_ Free to—  _

_ Sam blinked, Dean still grinning back at him with black eyes.  _

_ This didn’t happen, Sam thought. This wasn’t how it was.  _

_ “Yes it was,” Dean said, voice gentle, coaxing. Sam shook his head.  _

_ “No,” he said, “No, I— _

won’t,” Sam said, and Azazel laughed, swinging the knife back and forth in front of his face. 

“You sure Sammy?” he asked. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Sam shook his head, arms wrapped protectively around his stomach, his eyes staring down at the ground. He avoided looking at the pale white monster lying on the ground in front of him, whimpering in pain at the wounds that had already been dealt to it. He’d never seen anything like it before, though its long claws and sharp teeth spoke to something carnivorous and predatory. He shouldn’t have felt bad for it, but he did anyway. He  _ should _ have been able to kill it, no different than any of the times that John had treated him like a gun to be aimed into the darkness, but he felt like it would mean something different here, a larger wound upon his soul than it had been when he’d enacted the exact same violence at his father’s behest. Azazel shrugged, not looking particularly bothered, and Sam let out a long, slow breath. The knife was ancient, the handle worn with age and the jagged blade covered in symbols he couldn’t interpret. Azazel slit the monster’s throat with it, letting its blackened blood wash over Sam’s knees, soaking his pants. Azazel stared down at its body, expression one of distant disinterest before he turned to Sam and shoved the knife through his shoulder. Sam screamed, body arching forward in pain. A strong hand gripped his other shoulder, forcing him upright, and Sam screamed again when Azazel used that as leverage to pull the knife back out. 

The whole time, his expression stayed neutral, bored. Like injuring Sam was a chore, as necessary and uninteresting as taking out the garbage 

_ “I‘m Sam,” he said, eyes fixed on the wall at the back of the classroom with a disinterested expression, voice flat and empty. The other students were all staring at him, expressions curious, but he carefully avoided their eyes. John had said that this was going to be a quick hunt, had warned Sam that he already had another one lined up. Sam hadn’t meant to but he’d somehow ended up screaming at his dad, Dean snapping at him afterwards, asking him why he always had to be such a stubborn little shit. Sam didn’t have a good answer for him, but neither had John when Sam had asked why he even should bother going to school at all if they were only going to be there for a month.  _

_ “Do you want to tell us a little about yourself, Sam?” the teacher prompted, his voice kind, like he thought Sam was nervous, or shy. Sam shook his head. There was no point learning anything about these people, learning anyone’s names or what clubs were there or what the hangout spot was for lunchtime or after school. The only thing he could take with him, the only thing worth learning, was whatever the teachers would give him, so that was all he paid attention to. After a long, uncomfortable moment the teacher finally gestured him towards the only empty seat, and Sam managed to continue avoiding eye contact all the way there. Sitting, he pulled out a notebook half-full of notes from his last school, turning his attention to the board where the teacher, with a last, nervous look at Sam, was finally launching into the lesson. He just hoped it wasn’t something he’d already covered at another school.  _

The crown fit on his head like it had always been there, gold reflecting the fire that was consuming the city around him. The roar of the flames was just loud enough to drown out the dying screams of the humans, their flesh bubbling and burning with the heat of it. He looked out at the destruction, and smiled. 

_ The force of John’s fist snapped Sam’s head to the side, and he tasted blood on his tongue. He’d cut the inside of his lip on his teeth. He met Dean’s eyes, his brother’s expression torn as he looked between his brother and his dad. Sam turned back to his father, anger spiking hot and sharp in his chest.  _

_ “Fuck you,” he snapped, watching the frown on John’s face deepen “You can hit me all you want, it won’t _

change anything. Instead, Sam stayed still, watching with a sort of morbid detachment as the pliers gripped the next nail. The scream of pain as it was slowly dragged from its nailbed, lifted from his skin, almost seemed to come from someone else. He felt like he was floating outside of his body, the sharp spikes of pain the only thing preventing him from just disappearing into darkness. The nail was deposited somewhere outside of Sam’s vision, his eyes still locked on his own hand. Three nails down, two to go, and then his whole other hand besides. Maybe his feet too, and maybe if he was lucky, that was all they would do. 

_ Dean had made mac and cheese again. As hungry as Sam was, the meal sat in his stomach like a rock, heavy and nauseating. It was all they’d eaten for the last week, and Sam thought he would throw up if he had to eat it even one more time. He didn’t say anything about it out loud, the fearful, shamed looks that Dean kept giving him more than enough to keep his mouth shut. He knew that it was the only thing that Dean, barely tall enough to reach the stovetop, knew how to make well. It had also been the only thing he’d been able to buy before the credit card he’d swiped from Dad’s wallet started to get declined.  _

_ Sam had cracked open the door of the bedroom he and Dean were sharing the night before to see Dean helping their dad onto the couch. He was home, for once. Privately, Sam thought that he might as well not be. He and Dean had both been woken by the sound of the front door banging open, slurred swears and breaking glass carrying through the silent night air. Dean had whispered to Sam to stay in bed, had closed the bedroom door behind him. There had been a moment of stillness before Sam heard their dad snap at Dean. He had only caught about half of what Dad said. Something about Dean not being careful enough with the salt lines, not taking care of Sam the way he should. The familiar sound of a hand hitting skin was what had finally drawn Sam out of bed, walking on soft feet over to the door. He’d opened it slowly so that Dean wouldn’t see the movement and yell at Sam to get back to bed.  _

_ Peering through the night, Sam watched as Dean straightened, headed out of sight and into the kitchen. On the couch, their dad had started to cry. When Dean reemerged from the kitchen a few minutes later, it was with a glass of water and a bucket. Even in the darkness Sam could see how red the side of Dean’s face was, but he seemed to be fine otherwise. As Sam watched, he got Dad to take the glass of water, waiting to make sure he drank the whole thing before he pushed him to lie down. Sam couldn’t hear what Dad was saying, garbled as it was with alcohol and tears, but he could tell by the way that Dean tensed that he could understand him just fine. He flinched away when their dad reached out for the edge of his sleeve. Dad cried harder at that, his voice rising loud enough for Sam to catch the words I’m sorry falling from his mouth over and over again. They abruptly cut off when he lurched towards the edge of the couch, vomiting into the bucket Dean had brought out. Sam eased the door shut, creeping back to his bed. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before, but it still made his stomach clench every time.  _

_ It wasn’t until Dean came back into the room, climbing into Sam’s bed instead of his own and wrapping him up in his arms, that Sam was finally able to fall back asleep.  _

Sam looked in curiosity at the body hanging in front of him. It seemed to be unconscious, head hanging limply. Its intestines spilled down from its stomach to pool by its feet, a slick and tangled mess. Sam could see its lungs through the hole carved in its torso, rising and sinking as the body impossibly continued to breathe. When he looked back up, he was surprised to see that the body had raised its own head, eyes now open and staring back at Sam, blue shot through with red, lashes white with dried tears. They stared at each other for a long moment before the body opened its mouth and screamed, a single, piercing note, loud and echoing. Sam opened his mouth, and did the same. 

_ The farm the werewolf had been hiding on was old, though it hadn’t been empty for long, the foreclosure sign still standing in the front yard. Dad had gone around the back, telling Sam and Dean to count to 60 before they went in through the front. The windows were boarded, which wouldn’t mean much to a werewolf, but there wasn’t much they could do about that. Hopefully, it would be too focused on either John, or Sam and Dean, to notice the other coming up from behind it. Sam was pissed off that he’d been forced to come on this hunt when he really fucking needed to be studying for his math test, but now that he was here he was completely focused. Couldn’t afford to be anything but. He let out a slow breath, letting his training take over, the familiar calm pushing away any annoyance, any emotion at all.  _

_ He and Dean moved forward together, their timing perfectly synchronized through thousands of hours of practice. They pushed slowly through the long grass that had overtaken the front path. Sam frowned at the unavoidable rustling, though it was hardly any louder than the wind. He tightened his grip on his gun as they approached the door, feeling the comforting weight of the sheath holding his silver knife pressed against his side. They kept to the very edge of the wooden front steps, Dean leading, thankfully managing to avoid any loud creaking that would give away their position. The front door was more challenging—Dean turned the knob as quietly as he could, but the sound of it opening was loud and unmistakable in the night. Sam and Dean both winced at the noise, but continued onwards, slipping one after the other into the dark interior of the house.  _

_ There was barely enough light to see by, only what managed to leak through the poorly boarded windows. Dad had told them not to use their flashlights until they knew for sure that they’d been made, that the werewolf knew that they were there and where they were. Sam walked behind Dean, the two of them slowly making their way down the front hall, eyes never pausing as thy continuously scanned the house around them. They hadn’t heard any sound from the back of the house, from where Dad should have entered by now. There was no sign of the werewolf either, which was making Sam far more nervous. He was just beginning to wonder if Dad had been wrong, if it wasn’t here after all, when a low growl came from behind him and far above his head. Sam froze. Dean didn’t, whipping around and raising his gun. The gunshot was piercingly loud in the stillness of the night, shocking Sam into motion. He spun just as something heavy and solid slammed into his side, sending him flying into the wall. The air was punched from his lungs, and his gun fell from numb fingers. It had been the werewolf’s arm that had hit him, he realized as he dazedly watched it lunge towards Dean. Dean’s expression was grim as he moved his gun, preparing to fire again. The werewolf was too fast. It hit Dean straight on, sending Dean flying backwards.  _

_ “Dean!” Sam yelled. He didn’t bother to waste time trying to find his gun in the darkness of the hallway. Pulling out his knife, he launched himself into motion. The werewolf turned towards him. It was still looming above Dean’s prone body.  _

There was a knife in his hand.

_ Sam’s eyes flicked frantically around the hallway, trying to see into any of the other rooms that opened up into the hallway. He didn’t know where his dad was, didn’t know why he hadn’t emerged when Sam had yelled. Panic was filling his chest. He needed to get to Dean, to make sure Dean was ok. His gaze went to his brother, desperately looking for any sign that Dean was still alive. When he saw his brother’s chest rise and fall he could have cried in relief. He didn’t have time though, couldn’t _

There was a knife in his hand and the boy in front of him couldn’t be more than fourteen, eyes filled with fear as he backed away from Sam. Sam frowned at him, not understanding why he seemed to be so scared of 

_ afford to keep watching and worrying over his brother. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the monster between them. It bared its teeth at _

Sam. His expression didn’t change when Sam told him it was ok, that Sam wasn’t going to hurt him though, so Sam looked down at the knife in his hand instead, taking in the familiar silver of the blade, the black handle rough against the skin of his palm. He wondered where he’d seen it before as he glanced back up at the terrified boy in front

_ him, a low snarl reverberating from its chest, and Sam braced himself, a grim determination swelling inside of him as he began to slowly stalk forward, _

of him. Sam blinked. He was closer to him now, almost within arm’s distance, though he couldn’t seem to remember moving. The boy was pressed tight against the wall. He was speaking, a chaotic tangle of words; desperate pleas, crying for his mom, directionless prayers. Asking Sam to stop, but Sam wasn’t doing anything. 

_ towards the monster. His hand clenched on the handle of the knife, palms sweaty with fear. The edge of the knife _

“It’s okay,” he said, wondering who the kid was. He was even closer now, and could clearly see the way the boy’s clothing was stained with dirt, ripped in places though Sam couldn’t see any obvious injuries. Was he a witness? A victim? “It’s going to be okay,” he repeated, but the boy just cried harder. Sam took a deep breath, 

_ caught the scant light that was managing to pierce into the interior of the house. The werewolf let out a low, horrible noise, and Sam darted towards it, dodging a clawed hand. He shoved it forward with as much force as he could muster, and managed to bury it between two of the werewolf’s ribs. He’d _

and watched as the boy’s mouth opened, a thin string of blood and spit oozing over the round of his chapped lower lip. His teeth were coated in blood, and a small, strangled noise emerged from his throat. He was staring at Sam, eyes wide with shock. Sam opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say, how to comfort him. His hand flexed on the handle of the knife instead, and

_ missed the heart. Sam pulled the knife back out before slamming it forward again, pushing it deep into the werewolf’s chest and  _

out of the boy and

_ into the monster and _

out of the boy. 

_ the werewolf let out a strangled noise, oddly soft.  _

There was a long streak of blood down the wall in front of Sam. He blinked at it, not understanding. It hadn’t been there before, had it? His eyes began to follow its path downwards, even as something deep inside of him screamed at him not to, to stop before he

_ Sam looked down as the werewolf fell and saw _

the boy, lying on the ground.

_ No, that wasn’t right. It was a werewolf, he’d killed a werewolf because Dean was in danger, Dean was _

not there. 

_ No. _

There was no one there but the boy. 

_ No, please no.  _

Sam’s eyes drifted from the boy to the knife in his hand, covered in

_ a werewolf’s blood, it was a werewolf’s blood, please God, _

human blood. 

_ No. _

There was a horrible noise coming from somewhere, low and scared and inhuman, like a wild animal in pain.

Sam dropped the knife, and it clattered against the ground as he fell to his knees. He pressed his hands desperately against the wounds in the teenager's chest, 

_ You did this, your fault, you _

blood swelling up around his hands as the kid’s eyes, already blank with death, stared up at Sam in judgement, in condemnation. 

_ Monster. _

“Please,” Sam begged, “please.” 

_ Murderer. _

“Do you see it now?” a voice said from behind him. “What you really are, what you’ve always been?” 

“No,” Sam said, voice cracking as tears began to run down his cheeks. 

_ Yes,  _ he thought.

“You’ve always known this, Sam,” the voice continued. “Since the very beginning.” 

_ Sam was two years old.  _

_ Sam was two years old and he was sitting next to Dean on the couch, Dean’s arm slung around him as he read to Sam. The book had pictures, and Sam stared at them, the words themselves still indecipherable.  _

_ On the page, knights in silver armor rode on huge horses, banners bent in an invisible wind frozen above them as they rode towards battle. Dean’s soft voice was soothing, familiar as he read about quests and trials and the search for a chalice anointed with Christ’s blood.  _

_ Dean flipped the page. There was a knight, kneeling, light streaming over his face. Sam peered down at the picture, Dean’s voice becoming distant. I could never go on a quest like that, Sam thought to himself.  _

_ I’m not clean, he thought, but he still smiled at Dean when his brother glanced down at him. _

This was how it had always been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter explores how Sam was shaped into Hell’s weapon by Azazel, including physical and psychological torture, interspersed with memories (both real and false) of his childhood with Dean. Culminating incident is a hallucination that leads to him killing a young teenager, at which point Azazel is able to convince him that he is fundamentally evil, and always has been. 
> 
> thank you to Helen for the beta and general support and encouragement!!


End file.
